Stanford Professor Revolutionizes Plant-Based Burgers

Stanford professor Patrick Brown is doing the impossible: he’s on a mission to make the most realistic plant-based burger yet. His California startup, aptly named Impossible Foods, aims to persuade even the most dedicated meat lovers and claims that the “Impossible Burger” will deliver every aspect of a real burger “from the visual appearance and versatility of raw meat, to the smell and sizzle during cooking, to the ultimate taste and texture of the burger.” They are able to do this by carefully extracting specific fats, nutrients, and amino acids from greens, legumes and grains to create the perfect burger. Most importantly, they also add heme, a hemoglobin molecule found in blood that gives meat its distinct color. Heme occurs naturally in plants as well and is the key to what makes meat, well, meat!

The company’s goal is to give people the experience of eating meat “without the health and environmental drawbacks." They plan on debuting their first “Impossible Burger” later this year. For Brown however, it doesn’t stop there; if the burger is successful, the sky is the limit. “There are limits to what a cow can be--a cow can only be a cow,” he states. “We can make anything.”

Written by Donna Chen