Impossible Foods: The Secret Behind Plant-Based Meat.
Psst… The secret is heme.
Imagine this: you walk into the kitchen, hearing an unmistakeable sizzle on the grill. The aroma fills you up and you imagine yourself biting into that scrumptious piece of fibrous c̶a̶r̶c̶a̶s̶s plant as your mum stuffs it between a piece of bun.
Wait… Plant? Hold on, it’s code for beef burger right?
I get it; you can’t imagine yourself digging into a plant-based burger. Well, I can’t either. But I do know what can make you do so.
Take a look at this delicacy:
‘Aw snap — more beef burgers? C’mon! I was ALREADY craving some!’
Oh no, this isn't beef.
Definitely not — this, ladies and gentlemen, is the Impossible burger. Believe me, this is 100% 🌱
The Impossible burger IS possible though. And if you had ever tasted it, you’d know that it’s no different in terms of taste, smell and texture.
All thanks for this sustainable alternative goes to Impossible Foods. Speaking of which…
The brains behind the revolutionary patties.
Impossible Foods, as mentioned before, are the ones to give credit to for this impeccable burger.
Impossible Foods is a food-tech startup up in the Silicon Valley, aiming to revolutionize our food industry to make it scaleable + sustainable + safe for a growing population because… well, you probably know by now.
But just in case you don’t, here is a quick rundown of why:
- Our planet is dying and meat is one of the greatest contributors to climate change —Producing meat uses up a lot of the planet’s resources. In fact, meat production is even responsible for the degradation of the Amazon (land for livestock).
- For all this wastage, you’d expect to get some reaaal good meat, but guess what? Cows are only 3% efficient in making tasty calories. It isn’t the best for other animals either -_-
- Animals don’t go through a magic, rainbow rollercoaster to get these calories either — they are raised in factory farms (it ain't Old McDonald's happy farm) where they cannot even turn around, not only because of the cramped spaces but also because they are fattened beyond their natural rates. The icing on the top? A buttload of antibiotics is used (causing anti-biotic resistance) for this.
As you can see, we have no point in continuing this lunacy when we have much better alternatives like the Impossible Burger. Not to mention, this isn’t going to be smart to carry on with, especially when you have a growing population.
How is all this done? How do you get proteins from soy, potato and other plant-based stuff constituting the burger to feel, smell and taste like your regular-environmentally-unsustainable-unethical burger?
Well, for that, you’ll have to read on to the next section to uncover the tiny secret!
The very tiny (molecular) secret.
Like any logical person/start-up would do, I.F. started off by examining meat (in the molecular level) and seeing what gives meat its amazing properties.
How they do this on such a small scale was using a gas chromatography-mass spectrometer, which is where the researchers input a tiny sample of beef and heat it to different temperatures. Via this, they get a clear idea on different aromas that are released and can isolate all these itty-bitty flavour-giving molecules, which they can replicate (by turning to plants) for the Impossible Burger.
Another essential component that is necessary for customer acceptance is texture. I mean, imagine eating a dry burger without any of that juiciness. When you put its patty in the pan, it doesn't bleed as a regular one does. Uhm… No thanks.
How do the brains at Impossible foods figure out how to get the perfect texture for the burgers?
Well, they examine that too. They look at each of these proteins and characterize them. They look for the qualities in them that is crucial for making meat the heavenly goodness it is, and then they turn to nature. They look for the same properties in them (as previously done) and put them all together!
All of these together appeal to our senses and makes our mind’s internal dialogue go:
“I eat beef burger.”
Fun fact: the study of taste and flavor in relation to how our brain perceives it is known as neurogastronomy. This is what I.P. has been looking at to produce their meat. Very smart if you ask me!
Anyway, now we know the equation for a perfect burger to make our mind believe that 🌱= 🍖 :
Similar Texture + Similar Taste + Similar smell = Good (Meaty) Burger
There was one little molecule that stood out to provide a lot of the above.
Heme.
Sound familiar? Perhaps related something in your wonderful body?
If you guessed haemoglobin, you are absolutely right! But it’s not just humans that possess heme — all organisms do! It’s essential for life.
Now, what really is heme?
Heme is an iron-containing molecule, found in every living organism on earth. In animals, heme is present in myoglobin which is a protein which binds oxygen for energy.
To show you a real-life example of heme, let me ask you something. Have you ever — accidentally or not — tasted a raw piece of meat? (don’t try this at home 💀) If you have, you’ll know that it tastes kinda…bloody.
Yeah, but we aren’t here to taste raw patties — why would we need heme then?
Well, let’s turn to the cooking aspect of meat:
Cooking meat = a bunch of chemical reactions
As you can see from the simple ‘equation’ above, cooking meat is really a bunch of chemical reactions. That sizzle, the bleeding, the change in color which are all associated with cooking meat, is all due to chemical reactions.
Now, where does heme come in this?
Heme acts like a catalyst, meaning it accelerates these chemical reactions. The release of this molecule catalyses and ‘drives’ the burst of these flavours and aromas, giving it the meaty taste.
After the scientists at I.P. foods came to this conclusion, they took to the plant world as they had done before and found the presence of heme in the roots of soy in a protein called ‘leghemoglobin.’
… And this was the ‘Aha!’ moment for the flavour scientists. What was once a dull ol’ veggie burger was now completely transformed to resemble a beef burger!
Heme was the tiny little secret to all of this. But there’s this one complication…
Slapping on Gene-Editing to the Recipe
Ugh… there seems to be an unspoken rule that for every revolutionary thing, there MUST be some or the other complication 😢
The same is true for obtaining heme. While the source of heme is functionally identical, obtaining it means greater expenses + damage to soil. You see, leghemoglobin is found in the root nodules of soya beans, meaning that we’d have to dig up the soil to obtain it, which isn’t an easy task ( not easy = expenses📈📈📈).
If the burger is expensive, it obviously won’t be financially viable. That’d mean there’s no point in doing any of this as conventional beef will still have an edge over the Impossible Burger and that’ll equal to climate change, animal cruelty, anti-biotic resistance and wastage of resources. Ah, here we go again.
But my fellow human beans (I’m sorry), fear not as gene editing has once again come to rescue!
Often, this topic of genetic engineering is controversial but let me assure you, this is a completely safe procedure. All you are doing is introducing a gene from one organism (in our case, soy root) to another one (again, in our case — yeast). It’s common-place for many of us as it is used in breweries too!
So how do we go about it?
Well, here is genetically engineering yeast to produce heme in 3 easy steps
- Take a sample of a soy-root gene.
- Insert it onto the plasmid of yeast. A plasmid is basically this itty-bitty DNA molecule, separate from the main chromosomal DNA.
- Since DNA are the blueprints for any organism, the yeast will follow the instructions and unknowingly brew up some good heme!
If you read my previous article, you’d know that genetic code is the language of genes, and so every cell would be able to understand it (I used it in reference to acell ag — milk!). It’s basically the same thing (fermentation) in action here!
(Also, drop me a message if you are interested in a more in-depth gene-editing article!)
Where it all comes together.
Okay, we know the molecules + proteins. Where do they all form our beef burger?
To know that, let’s talk a bit about the composition of this amazing burger.
Take a look at all the ingredients that make up this delicacy:
Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, 2% Or Less Of: Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Mixed Tocopherols (Antioxidant), Soy Protein Isolate, Vitamins and Minerals (Zinc Gluconate, Thiamine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Niacin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12).
Source: Impossible Foods
Now, you might notice that you can sort most of these out into the proteins (like soy and potato concentrate), flavours (like vitamins, sugars and salts) and fats (like coconut oil).
What binds these all (the binders) is methylcellulose! It makes all of the stuff gel together and enables us to mould it.
…And there you go! You’ve got some plant-based meat!
The best part? It’s commercially available right now. That’s right — you can find it in local stores (depending on where you live, check the Impossible Foods website for more info on that)
This isn’t cultivated meat. That, although pretty cool, still has to cross a couple technological, social and economical caveats.
In fact, a lot of people think that the future of meat is an intersection between cultivated meat and plant-based meat. Now that seems pretty promising, doesn't it?
If you made it till here…
Thank you! I appreciate you reading this article — give it a clap (or more 😉) if this added value to you. I’d love to know what you think, so feel free to reach out with feedback.
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Before you leave, here’s one thing I want you to think about:
Picture the scene I mentioned in the beginning. Would you be more excited to eat the plant-based ‘beef’ burger now that you know a bit about it? Why or why not?
