Is the 'Impossible Burger' Safe?

By Chuck Dinerstein — August 12, 2019

Having jumped all the appropriate FDA hurdles to ensure safety, the Impossible Burger in its uncooked form is coming to supermarket shelves this fall. That has not silenced its critics who now consider the Impossible Burger “unhealthy” and continue to raise concerns.

What is actually in an Impossible Burger?

The top five ingredients begin with water, soy protein that replaced an earlier version made from wheat protein (perhaps a nod to the gluten-free crowd), coconut oil now reduced with sunflower oil to reduce saturated fats, and natural flavors. It also contains methylcellulose, not to worry, it is a plant-based binder creating the right mouthfeel, and of course, heme or soy leghemoglobin. This last ingredient is tasty, a feat of genetic engineering and the one ingredient getting the evil eye of safety concerns.

From a nutritional lens, the complaint is that Impossible Burgers have too much fat and salt. In comparison to equal size (roughly 4 ounces) and equal caloric lean beef hamburger, it has 1 gram more fat, 9 grams of carbohydrate, and 16% rather than beef’s 1% of our “daily value” of salt. It also contains 10 grams less protein, but three gms of fiber. But none of this is surprising; you are eating a plant, not a cow. And all the variations of protein, carbs, fiber, and like the percentages you would find in the oft-cited plant-based diet. As for fat and salt, the increased fat is 1.5% of the recommended daily amount, and the salt can be easily managed by most individual's kidneys who have been doing it far longer than the USDA.

The Impossible Burger also contains a number of vitamins some of which are needed when strictly following a plant-based diet. The most important, and controversial, is the iron found in that genetically engineered soy leghemoglobin..........To Read More....