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Biotech Businesses

Impossible Foods Plans To Lay Off About 20% of Workers (techcrunch.com) 174

Impossible Foods, which makes plant-based nuggets, burgers and patties, is reportedly laying off 20% of its staff, Bloomberg reported first. TechCrunch reports: According to the story, the 12-year-old company currently employs about 700 workers, which could then affect over 100 employees. This comes as the company made a 6% reduction in its workforce last October. While we know layoffs can happen anytime, it seems like the company was doing well. Earlier this month, the Redwood City, California-based company reported a year of record sales that included over 50% dollar sales growth in 2022. The company also touted that its Impossible Beef product was "the best-selling product by volume of any plant-based meat brand in the U.S."

Months before that, CEO Peter McGuinness said in an interview with Bloomberg Technology that the company had a strong balance sheet, good cash flow and growth of between 65% to 70%. In total, Impossible raised $1.9 billion in venture capital, according to Crunchbase data. The last time the company raised capital was a $500 million Series H round in November 2021, and it was at that time that the company was valued at $7 billion. [...] Impossible is not the only plant-based meat alternative company to make layoffs in recent months. In a regulatory filing made last October, Beyond Meat said it planned to lay off about 200 employees, or 19% of its workforce, as part of cost-saving measures as sales were slumping.

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Impossible Foods Plans To Lay Off About 20% of Workers

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  • Anyone try it? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AlanObject ( 3603453 ) on Monday January 30, 2023 @05:44PM (#63252139)

    I can't say I have.

    I find it amazing how much shelf space at the grocery they paid for and how many restaurant menus featured their stuff. I see it everywhere. I am not anti-vegan but I sure as hell not vegan myself. Humans just weren't evolved to eat what vegans think they were.

    But I guess it just didn't taste good enough. Anyone here care to post an unbiased review? I'm curious.

    • Re:Anyone try it? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dbialac ( 320955 ) on Monday January 30, 2023 @05:58PM (#63252175)
      It just comes down to vegans thought falsely that if they came up with a product that was like meat but vegan, then everyone would stop eating meat and switch. They never thought of the fact that not eating meat was never our goal and we never wanted anything along this product line. Vegans and vegetarians are free to eat it as much as they desire, I won't stop them. Impossible Foods should, though, set up their sales strategy to target vegans and vegetarians, not the rest of us.
      • Re:Anyone try it? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Monday January 30, 2023 @06:39PM (#63252297)
        I think that in the long term their products would fail even if more people were interested in them. Eventually someone will figure out how to grow actual meat in a lab and do it at scale. It'll be a massive disruption of the existing market, but will mean less expensive, higher quality meat reaches more tables. I'm sure there will still be an option for "real" meat, but it'll become more of a delicacy choice and likely to push people towards free-range animals over the feedlot or factory farmed animals that most people consume.

        I'm really curious what happens to the vegan/vegetarian movement at that point because the largest sub-group seems to just oppose eating meat over ethical concerns. I wouldn't find it surprising that lab meat will still take more energy or produce more carbon than vegetables, but that may become a smaller gap over time. The other weird side effect will be that there are far fewer livestock animals kept than today. Maybe cattle will exist for producing dairy products, but I can't see anyone keeping herds of pigs if you can grow a side of bacon in a vat.
        • I think it's a stop gap though. Start with just eating less meat. Then to get more vegetables and less meat, eat normal vegetable dishes instead of meat "substitutes". I'd much rather have meatless chili than chili with fake meat (ugh, had the worst possible jack fruit chili, even the vegetarians were complaining about it).

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Growing meat is not a simple case of someone just figuring it out. It's a complex industrial process that requires huge developments to create a product that can compete with real meat or things like Impossible. There would need to be a really strong market for a company to invest in that moonshot, so more like it will happen slowly through research at universities.

          I've tried Impossible's burger and it's decent. I eat meat too. I think the main issue is the cost.

        • I agree that "harm-free" meat would go a long way, provided it's really the same as real meat, except for the provenance aspect (lab instead of animal). It's not clear to me how far away that is today, in time and/or development money...
          • While there's probably a market for cruelty-free meat, I am skeptical of a market for harm-free meat. If the cow lives a happy life and is slaughtered humanely, that meets consumer expectations for meat.

        • I think that in the long term their products would fail even if more people were interested in them. Eventually someone will figure out how to grow actual meat in a lab and do it at scale. It'll be a massive disruption of the existing market, but will mean less expensive, higher quality meat reaches more tables. I'm sure there will still be an option for "real" meat, but it'll become more of a delicacy choice and likely to push people towards free-range animals over the feedlot or factory farmed animals tha

        • by dbialac ( 320955 )
          Most cow-based meat is not factory farmed. Living in cities, it's easy to forget all of the acres of land that cows roam around while they're raised. Minus veal, they're generally raised on multi-acre properties at a minimum, or in western states, enormous ranches measured in square miles. I personally probably won't ever eat lab grown meat, but I actually support it for other reasons: we're becoming a space faring civilization and our current technology doesn't really give us the ability to transport a cow
          • This is sadly terribly wrong. Go to Iowa where there is tons of land and they are still building new factory farms. Just because a lot of land exists does not mean cows roam freely. It driven by capitalism not common sense. They feed the cows the byproduct of turning corn into ethanol. Electric cars might change that though??

        • higher quality meat reaches more tables

          LOL no :-) If there's anything I've learned in the few decades or so of my life is that in any industry, and food industry first and foremost, if there's anyway to get away with cheating, they will cheat. They do it with mayonnaise, salad sauce, printer ink, shoe polish, chili sauce, and stuff as simple as rotten fruit distilled into alcohol.

          With real meat at least there's a lower limit on how you can screw up quality - anything below that and the animal dies before being slaughtered. But lab meat? On the c

      • Re:Anyone try it? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Monday January 30, 2023 @06:48PM (#63252337) Homepage

        Impossible Foods should, though, set up their sales strategy to target vegans and vegetarians, not the rest of us.

        Impossible targets "the rest of us" because they've kept out of the ethical debates over raising animals for food and have focused primarily on the environmental impacts of raising livestock.

        • But their food is worse on the environment than proper meat. Even environmentalists are now opining that Beyond Beef is no better than factory produced chicken nuggets.

          They take the energy consumption of the entire feed crops to dinner plate for the worst style production of meat (mass factory beef from China/Mexico) and compare it to the amount of energy their factory consumes (with carbon credit style accounting).

          Going full vegan is simply not sustainable. The amount of land we would need to grow human fe

          • Re: Anyone try it? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by edi_guy ( 2225738 ) on Monday January 30, 2023 @11:46PM (#63252843)

            Note I'm not vegan not even vegetarian. Totally fine to ding on Beyond/Impossible because their offerings taste bad or are too expensive, or whatever. But the idea that 21st century humanity needs to eat animals, or in some bizarre fashion that raising said animals is better for the environment is simply not true.

            If humans reduced raising beef cattle (also a monoculture btw) and other animals for food, planet would be better off, full stop. Now you'll have to pry the bacon from my cold dead hands, but I'm at least honest with myself on this and do try to dial down the meat consumption for myself and future humans to come.

            When I look on the internet I only see straight up shill nonsense like the following.:

            "What’s more, the environmental benefits of beef production have been left out of the conversation, Peck says: Beef farmers and ranchers in Canada care for 35 million acres of native temperate grasslands, among the most endangered lands in the world, and which sequester 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon. [Amie Peck, stakeholder engagement manager for the Canadian Cattlemen’s "Association]

            “Monocultures ([ike soy/pea protein] will have impacts on soil erosion, they depend heavily on fossil fuels because of the fertilizers, and they’re a nightmare for biodiversity,” [Frédéric Leroy, a professor at Vrije Universiteit Brussel who sponsores this sort of stuff https://aleph-2020.blogspot.co... [blogspot.com]

          • Going full vegan is simply not sustainable. The amount of land we would need to grow human feed crops is immense and would exist primarily out of monocultures. There is a reason humans evolved and farmed animals, the calorie density per area of land is really high and the energy that needs to go in is relatively low, whereas feed crops to maintain the same calorie supply require more area, much more work (energy) and specific levels of complex chemistry which makes it much more susceptible to potentially devastating loss.

            [citation needed]

            BTW, what do you think all those animals we eat eat? Where do we grow that stuff?

            • Don't known for sure, just chiming in here; but overall they may be more efficient. They have some pretty advanced biochemistry in there, and chemically we're not able to efficiently replicate everything that we see in nature.

              Not by a large stretch.

              Why do you think many medical companies still harvest snake venom?

        • I keep hearing that fake meat will have a lower footprint than cattle, but having grown up on a farm I simply do not see it.

          Even today, a family farm does not have a massive environmental footprint, nothing on the scale of a factory. Certainly American farms a century ago did not - they used little energy beyond what the tractor needed - most things were done manually or with minimal industrial power. Some farm activities then were greener than anything a city person will be doing decades from now: clothes

      • It just comes down to vegans thought falsely that if they came up with a product that was like meat but vegan, then everyone would stop eating meat and switch.

        I'm also unsure if it's actually better/healthier for you than meat -- simple meats, not things like sausage, salami, etc... My guess is that while it may be better/healthier in some ways, it's probably not or worse in others. I've had some of this at a friend's house and while the taste isn't bad, it's not like meat and the texture is off, though perhaps close to *really* lean meat.

        My guess is that it would simply be healthier to eat real meat, just less of it.

      • by dfm3 ( 830843 )
        Impossible meat will never catch on with the rest of us so long as it's more expensive than real meat. If the benefit is abstract (most people don't want to think about where their meat comes from and if you show them, they'll just shrug their shoulders and keep eating it anyway), most folks will balk at paying $1-2 more for an impossible whopper and stick with real beef. If it were something like half the price of beef, it might get more market traction with people who care more about cost than about envir
      • It's fine, if there's a vegan option that tastes ok, I'll go with it. The problem is some of these meat "substitutes" aren't good; I'd rather have old style vegetarian stuff than fake meat. Now some is ok, impossible burger when fresh and hot isn't bad. But more expensive, more salt than the regular burger. (or maybe that's beyond beef, I can't remember which is decent and which tastes foul) I like the old style veggie burgers which were made with grains and such and never tried to be "meat" but just a

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The biggest issue seems to be the cost. McDonalds do burgers for under a buck. Even their mid range ones are getting on for half the price of an Impossible Burger.

          As times get lean people cut back on expensive luxuries like gourmet burgers.

      • by ZeroPly ( 881915 )

        "Everyone" is a very broad claim, considering that there are 330 million people in the US alone. You're succumbing to that favorite of American logical errors - the false dichotomy. The 300+ million non-vegans are not neatly split into two camps, of vegans/vegetarians, and people like you. There are plenty of omnivores doing "meat free Mondays" and so on, who don't intend to switch between your two imaginary camps.

        Impossible and Beyond are targeting people who want to reduce their meat consumption, and they

      • Impossible Foods showed that there is real demand for meat that doesn't involve killing animals. Who doesn't like that?

        Their problem was their product doesn't taste like meat, and also doesn't taste very good. You can eat a tofu burger that tastes just as good but has more nutrition.

      • if they came up with a product that was like meat but vegan, then everyone would stop eating meat and switch.

        I was always curious about this. There are so many tasty vegetarian meals in the world. Why do vegetarians insist on trying to replicate meat? Poorly.

        Yes I've tried an impossible meat burger. And it is impossible to confuse it with real meat in both flavour and texture.

      • Meat is expensive. If the impossible meat were nutritionally similar at a fraction of the cost, there might be a market. At restaurants, however, it isn't discounted at all. Might as well have the real thing. And I never thought the impossible products tasted exceptionally good. But there are many of us who would accept a like-meat product if it was cheap enough. But wouldn't pay nearly the same prices as real meat.
      • It is not possible to imitate meat while being more "green".

        You have a sheep. This organism is a result of the most gigantic and most expensive R&D project on Earth. Evolution.

        From basic principles it is absolutely impossible to obtain the hundreds of necessary components in meat....the fats, proteins, minerals, vitamins etc. via some kind of industrial process and then successfully mesh them in artificial meat ( the delivery mechanism alone will screw you; that's why most probiotics and multivitamin pi

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Humans just weren't evolved to eat what vegans think they were.

      Really? In my experience vegans think that humans evolved to be omnivores. They also think they're capable of making other choices.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by StormReaver ( 59959 )

      I tried it once, and it was repulsive. It was very clearly (over)loaded with additional ingredients to make it somewhat, vaguely resemble something someone might want to eat, but it failed miserably.

      • I’ve tried them several times. I look it like a movie remake, if you go in expecting something to be like the original, you’re going to be let down even if it’s actually decent. It’s setting up false expectations. I think it tastes vaguely meat-ish but it does not have anything like the texture, taste, or mouth feel. They are dry and do not exude fat and oil anything like meat does. Overall I like them, I just don’t see them as an animal protein substitute and if I was ex
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
      It just tastes like a hamburger to me. I think I actually prefer a good quality black bean burger but those are harder to come by on grocery store shelves. Even if you're not vegan or vegetarian it's useful if you're trying to keep your cholesterol down.
    • I can't say I have.

      But I guess it just didn't taste good enough. Anyone here care to post an unbiased review? I'm curious.

      I tried it. It was OK. It's passable. It's the best fake meat I've had...but it doesn't taste better than real meat. It's less nutritious, very unhealthy, and it's at least 3x as expensive as real meat. Burger King had them in Whoppers in my area and they were fine...they didn't taste better and I honestly felt slightly worse after eating them than I would have a regular whopper. I generally feel a bit icky after eating lots of soy. I don't think soy is good for you in high quantities. I have never

      • Taste is important. But it's not hard to get taste. Back in college the vegetarian cafeteria (before the word "vegan") the food was atrocious. A bunch of volunteer hippy types who honestly made spaghetti with tomato sauce taste foul somehow, I dunno how they managed that; salads always wilted, etc. It's not hard to make good vegetarian food, just make all those veggie sides that go with meat and leave out the meat. So much great vegetarian Indian food that I don't know why people would want some rubber

        • The reason school cafeteria vegetarian food is never good is because in order for it to look and taste good, from farm to stores and restaurants we must destroy approximately 50-90% of the land production. School cafeterias trend towards the lower side of the scales.

          The whole world canâ(TM)t somehow get a consistent supply of edible avocados, lettuce, corn, soy and rare mushrooms.

          • This was entirely a student run place, not an official cafeteria. The real cafeterias were so much better. Sometimes I suspected that the hippies really thought healthy food had to taste bad.

    • I tried it once in a taco. I figured the spiciness would overcome any weirdness.
      The texture was...disappointing. Mushy, not at all like ground beef. Giving it the benefit of doubt...it could have been an issue with preparation.

      I haven't really sought it out since, or crossed paths by chance...so, that was my only experience.

      • When tasting something I think that it has to be blind taste test, just deciding you don't like something will usually mean you don't. I know this too well when you try to feed my children vegetables.

        For a more scientific results, see how people think bottled water tastes better even if they are from the same tap. Or how wine tasters are not good at judging wines.
        https://www.theguardian.com/li... [theguardian.com]

        • WTF are you talking about...as mushy as it was, it would have failed horribly in a blind test. Nobody would have confused it for ground beef.
          But, like I said: "Giving it the benefit of doubt...it could have been an issue with preparation."

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 )

      Anyone here care to post an unbiased review? I'm curious.

      It depends on how it is prepared. In a Whopper it kind of tastes like a slightly drier, less fatty Whopper patty (as if it was made from ground sirloin rather than the bargain-bin stuff Burger King usually puts in their patties. In a home made burger when you don't overcook the fuck out of it, it's hard to tell it's not beef. Similarly, in tacos, it's also pretty good. If you're not a big fan of the gristle and cartilage and whatever other non-muscle bits tend to end up in ground beef, it's possible you

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      My only datapoint is that there's a lot of video of cleaned out meat refrigerators in stores in some regions, with just one exception.

      Impossible meat thingies are fully stocked. To the brim. It made for interesting contrast against massive empty rest of the fridge.

      • My only datapoint is that there's a lot of video of cleaned out meat refrigerators in stores in some regions, with just one exception.

        Impossible meat thingies are fully stocked. To the brim.

        Like so many things these days, even plant-based meat has become highly politicized. Some people refuse to touch it because they see it as a conspiracy to take away their dead cow flesh.

        I live in a relatively blue part of Florida and the stores have trouble keeping the plant based stuff in stock, especially when there's a sale.

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          That doesn't work as an explanation for this one though. Just because people who didn't buy it before don't buy it later doesn't make people who do buy it buy it less. And we had a lot of evidence of fridges empty of everything but the impossible meat stuff.

          That said, "dead cow flesh" phraseology is a bit of a giveaway of why you would think even food is political rather than a matter of taste.

      • My only datapoint is that there's a lot of video of cleaned out meat refrigerators in stores in some regions, with just one exception.

        Just curious, where do you live where there are empty shelves and shortages?

        I've not seen anything like that in my area (New Orleans area) since the first year of covid...been pretty much normal back again since then here.

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          I was unclear in my previous statement and I should clarify that I was specifically talking about the time of covid.

    • by DrXym ( 126579 )

      I've tried the burger mix and I'm quite positive about the experience. It cooks like meat, resembles meat and tastes close enough to meat that you could happily enjoy it in a burger. Biggest issue is that it's expensive stuff and it's basically just a glorified soy burger. It's not even especially healthy either since it contains a lot of fat.

      The price is the killer. Perhaps hipsters will pay a premium to have this stuff on a regular basis, but people looking to move away from meat will balk at paying more.

    • Re:Anyone try it? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jdawgnoonan ( 718294 ) on Monday January 30, 2023 @06:43PM (#63252317)
      I tried it at Burger King. I got an Impossible Whopper and a Whopper. The Impossible Whopper was edible and meat-like, but way too salty. It wasn't an experience that made me think I would be willing to switch The regular Whopper was much better. I also tried a Beyond Meat burger at another restaurant. It tasted awful and I would not eat one again unless I feared I was starving to death. The truth about these foods are that they are overly processed junk food.
    • by msauve ( 701917 )
      It tastes like crap. But vegans who are repulsed by meat are their market, so, win?
    • I was interested, but never got up the courage. I kept thinking of Olestra.

    • The market determined that people didn't want to pay for an overpriced veggie shitburger.
    • Tastes dry, like overcooked, overseasoned and overworked meat. I would say similar to a McDonalds hamburger. Doesnâ(TM)t have the texture or taste of real meat and anyone who says it is hasnâ(TM)t eaten properly prepared meat.

    • by glatiak ( 617813 )

      Sure. My wife is vegetarian and I cook for her -- mostly asian but occasionally other stuff. Mostly I use tofu or self-made seitan meat analogs in the dishes. Yeah, beans are a good source as well -- but they have post-consumption side effects. There are a couple of vendors here in Canada that make fake meats. There used to be some great chicken-like things but the importer got bought out and no longer wanted to bother. BeyondMeat... has a number of products up here -- burgers and sausages. If we are out we

    • I tried the Beyond burger today and it was nice. I am vegetarian and have never eaten a meat burger, however. I prefer spicy Bean burgers that taste of stuff I like rather than imitate something I donâ(TM)t miss but obviously itâ(TM)s targeted at new vegans and vegetarians and helps them change habits without gently.

      I asked how many they sell and itâ(TM)s the second most popular burger, with at least a quarter of all sales being, which surprised me. This was just outside Rotterdam Central Sta

    • Just go to BK and get an Impossible Whopper. Guess what? It tastes just like a normal Whopper. And the Impossible Nuggets at Trader Joes are actually better than whatever concoction McDonalds sells. So my honest review is that it tastes pretty good!

  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday January 30, 2023 @05:57PM (#63252171)

    The release of a new "Soylent" line of products!

  • by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Monday January 30, 2023 @06:12PM (#63252207)
  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday January 30, 2023 @06:18PM (#63252225)
    Every company in America is doing layoffs to appease him. Their profits are fine and it's going to cost a bunch of money to rehire all these employees who they actually need to do business. But Paul has come out and said he's not going to stop raising interest rates until he sees layoffs.

    We need to stop voting for people like this. Yeah I know there's a complicated process of appointing the chair of the Federal reserve but at the end of the day he's there because of the political choices we all made and he's threatening all of our jobs. I don't think slash Dot is that full of retirees and the independently wealthy. If you run a small business good luck getting any customers
  • by locater16 ( 2326718 ) on Monday January 30, 2023 @06:20PM (#63252227)
    Years and years ago I got into an argument with an econ professor I had. He thought the key to getting renewables to be popular were complex tax schemes and credits and watnot. I thought it was simple, make renewables cheaper than fossil fuels. A decade later I was dead right.

    Same thing here. It tastes fine apparently. Ok, good. Meat is expensive, make this less expensive. Not environmentally friendly, not animals friendly, just less expensive and market domination will come.
    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Problem is that you can't make something that is inherently expensive and hard to deploy cheaper than something that is inherently cheap and easy to deploy. This is why without massive incentives, developing world just goes to cheap and easy. Coal.

      *There are some limited geographies where this is no longer true, but for overwhelming majority of world's population, coal remains by far the cheapest and easiest thing to deploy. If you don't believe me, consider the fact that payments from rich to poor under st

  • A quick look at Target for Beyond Meat. Price of 1 lb of ground beef $6.79:

    https://www.target.com/p/all-n... [target.com]

    One pound of beyond meat - $8.99:

    https://www.target.com/p/beyon... [target.com]

    I've tried it before. It is OK...but few people will pay more for it than real meat. Halve the price and then we can talk.

  • No one wants to eat hyper processed starch heavy slop

    • Fast food is as popular as ever, so I'd say they do.

      My only experience with the Impossible stuff was buying an Impossible Whopper a few months ago. It tasted better than the veggie burgers of 15 years ago (last time I tried), but still not as good as a real burger. It kind of reminded me, particularly texture-wise, of the pressed and shaped chicken patties/nuggets that you can get at McDonald's.

    • hyper processed starch heavy slop

      Wow when you describe it like that, it actually sounds better.

  • "Dad, look at the way you eat. Haven't you heard of cholesterol?"

    "Sure I have. That's what they put in red meat to make it taste good"
     

    • Note that cholesterol is an essential part of the cell walls in your body.

      • Note that cholesterol is an essential part of the cell walls in your body.

        And..dietary cholesterol in does not equal (!=) blood cholesterol levels.

    • The anti truth that dietary cholesterol is linked to your blood levels was disproved and quietly taken off the list of dietary "recommendations" approximately 25 years ago. Check it out.

      But I'm not surprised anymore. After all, the worst anti truth of all, that we will suffer from overpopulation was disproved in 1994 (peak child, check it on e.g. worldmeter.com). Soon it will be 30 years and yet 75% of westerners hold that most anti human, abominable opinion.

      Hell, people still believe eating carrots bette

  • Look at the ingredient's list. Their products are about as natural as a Twinkie and also about as healthy. The fat content is really high. Sure it is vegetable fat, but it is still fat.
    • Vegetable fats (which are generally highly processed) worse than animal fat according to most recent research with close links to obesity and heart disease.

  • But we already knew that.

  • by HnT ( 306652 ) on Monday January 30, 2023 @08:07PM (#63252491)

    There are so many delicious vegetarian and vegan dishes from many different cuisines all over the world. Why would anyone eat this trash combination of laboratory gloop?

    • Wanting to maintain the same habits as before, but somehow magically make it less destructive. They don't want new cuisine. They don't want to learn the names and locations of sale of weird foreign dishes. Ordering a #12 instead of a #2 is the most radical change they are comfortable making.

  • A company that makes faux meat products that are impossible to mistaken for meat discovers that revenue resulting from people trying their products once or twice and rejecting them isn't sustainable? Not possible!

  • Sure, mod me down again, but who cares what it tastes like if it does support long-term human life? It cannot compare to meat, of any kind, in terms of usable protein, essential fats, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, micronutrients. It cannot compare to fresh or frozen vegetables either, or fish, or fruit or berries or potatoes or green beans or nuts... or any other actual human food. Because, tastes-like-meat does not make ground up pea paste and soybean oil and industrial grade flavorings into a human food.
  • I am an old guy who is supposed to be watching his blood pressure, and people constantly suggest these manufactured products as a substitute for meat. The impossible burger has 370mg of sodium per 4oz portion, while an equal portion of ground beef has about 70mg. The Impossible people like to compare their 370mg patty with the typical ~370mg of a commercial burger but that ignores the 300mg coming from the cheese, bun, and condiments. So a BASIC single impossible burger prepared the same way is going to
    • The impossible burger has 370mg of sodium per 4oz portion, while an equal portion of ground beef has about 70mg.

      Sure, if you want to make a horrible tasting ground beef. But any chef worth his salt (pun intended) will add sodium during cooking. For flavour any chef worth their salt (still punning) will add salt into the sauce, or balance it with a nice strip of bacon.

      The comparison with fully assembled burgers is valid. Sodium tastes like sodium put too much sodium in your food and it will taste like over salted trash making you reach for a waterbottle. Put too little and it'll taste bland. The end result of a burger

  • I would think the only people that would buy Impossible Meat are those that, while like they like meat, are against eating animals for ethical reasons, and that's all well and fine. It's still designed to taste like meat, and it's pretty much as unhealthy as real meat from what I've read, so that leaves out anyone that thinks it's healthier. Add in the fact that it's at least as expensive as real meat, and you've got a pretty small percentage of the grocery shoppers out there that will actually buy it.
  • There's been a lot of press lately labeling these meat alternatives as overly processed junk. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but I certainly am aware of who exactly benefits from these sorts of labels.

    • The nutritional information is on the label, as is required by law. Compare it to that of regular ground beef, make your own decision.
  • Not good enough for soylent. I wonder what grade of human is good enough to go into soylent and what are the grading criteria? I guess it does not matter, I'm 100% sure I'm not eating it.

  • What a waste to lay off all those employees, which will only make it more difficult for the company to produce more product. If only we could use them for something more productive...
  • Higher in salt, additives, and highly processed makes it less healthy than beef ! Add it cost more $$$$. It CAN'T compared to steaks I've cooked on the grill ! SIL just told my wife the other day that her doctor told her she a medical issue because she DOESN'T eat much red meat !

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