If there's a low road, I'll find it.
Posted on 05/25/2018 2:44:15 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The trail-blazing Impossible Burger, the world’s only kosher cheeseburger, created sustainably, is now officially on the Orthodox Union’s kosher database registry.
The Impossible Burger entered development in 2011 and debuted in July 2016 at the fashionably erstwhile Chef David Chang’s Momofuku Nishi in Manhattan. It’s since won a 2017 Tasty Award and a 2018 Fabi Award from the National Restaurant Association - and it’s the only plant-based burger to ever have done so.
“Getting kosher certification is an important milestone,” said Impossible Foods CEO and Founder Dr. Patrick O. Brown. “We want the Impossible Burger to be ubiquitous, and that means it must be affordable and accessible to everyone — including people who have food restrictions for religious reasons.”
In Oakland, California, the magic happens on a 67,000-square-foot manufacturing facility which produces 500,000 pounds of plant-based meat per month. Rabbis from OU Kosher toured it earlier this year to make sure all ingredients, processes, and equipment used to make the Impossible Burger are compliant with kosher law.
Ingredients? No animal products whatsoever, just simple ingredients like water, wheat protein, potato protein and coconut oil. No slaughterhouses, no hormones, no cholesterol, no artificial flavors, no antibiotics and no guilt is involved in the making of these burgers. The Impossible Burger impossibly uses about 75% less water, generates about 87% fewer greenhouse gases, and requires around 95% less land than conventional ground beef from cows.
So what’s the secret ingredient? One word, two syllables: Heme. It’s what helps meat taste like meat. It’s what ties all the other flavors together when meat is cooking. Heme is found in practically everything we eat, but especially in animal tissues. Scientists at Impossible discovered its the abundance of heme in animal tissue that makes meat taste like meat.
So Impossible Foods developed a way to make heme, and thereby meat, by genetically engineering and fermenting yeast to produce a heme protein called soy leghemoglobin.
The heme you eat in your Impossible Burger is the same heme your ancestors ate with their freshly bloodied dead wild boar. Unlike the wild boar, this Impossible Burger is doing its part to save the planet. “I’m really excited to be able to announce that the Impossible Burger is now kosher. And because our meat is purely plant-based, for the first time we can all enjoy a delicious — and strictly kosher — cheeseburger,” said Impossible Foods’ Chief Science Officer Dr. David Lipman.
Even before the Impossible Burger got its kosher stamp, it was served in more than 1,500 restaurants across the United States and in Hong Kong. White Castle even added the the Impossible Slider to its menu recently. In 140 restaurants nationwide, bleary eyed stoners can accidentally order the plant burger and be shocked at how similar it tastes to the real thing.
Impossible Foods is a privately held company dedicated to reducing food’s environmental footprint with plant-based chow. It was founded in 2011 by Patrick O. Brown, M.D., Ph.D., formerly a biochemistry professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Stanford University. Investors include Horizons Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates, Google Ventures, UBS, Viking Global Investors, Temasek, Sailing Capital and Open Philanthropy Project.
So Impossible Foods has indeed done the impossible. There’s only one question that remains to be answered: what blessing do you say on a kosher plant-based cheeseburger? We’ll leave that to the rabbis.
“Plant based meat” -? Satire?
We can call it a shamburger.
Well, beef eats plants, so all beef is plant based.
The laws of kashruth forbid eating meat products along with milk products, even requiring separate meat and milk cooking pots, utensils, and serving dishes. It has nothing to do with the temperature of the food. It's the nature of the food. Meat is meat, milk is milk. This new "burger" is not made of meat, but of plant products. Therefore, there is no mixing of meat and milk together and it would be kosher.
“The laws of kashruth forbid eating meat products along with milk products, even requiring separate meat and milk cooking pots, utensils, and serving dishes. “
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I know lady who even had two dishwashers.
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If there's a low road, I'll find it.
Look at that pretty little girl face embedded in the bigger face.
Sad
That was depressed for years because it couldn’t find anyone who wanted to be in a relationship with it. Jenner complained about the same for a while but he’s got one of his kind so some such on his arm these days. Can you say a publicity grabber?
Ok, have to ask why?
Sanitation and cooking practices have improved over the pass several thousand years. Cross contamination. I can’t see how there’s any reason for that now aside from tradition.
There’s also a reason why foods are more spicy from countries with higher temperatures. Spice is used to retard spoilage and to cover it up.
My son works there, I have tasted them. they are indistinguishable from a meat burger. Very good but currently about one dollar more than a meat burger. Most places that sell impossible burgers allow the customer to order a regular burger and then substitute the Impossible burger in place of the meat product which they also sell.
I am pleased that the product meets kosher standards and is not meat. So it can be eaten with meat or dairy. This expands the sales potential. I believe the same goes for food that meets the Muslim requirements. Impossible foods can sell everything they produce.
It makes sense from a ten year old's view point.
It's not a cheeseburger.
And I'll bet he's not Chinese.
We don't keep kosher because of "sanitation". That's what the reform Jews use as a human rationale to excuse themselves from following the dictates of the Torah. We were told in the Torah that we can't eat milk and meat together, and with the corollary (Orthodox) rabbinical interpretations, this forms the basis of keeping kosher. It's "tradition" because observant Jews have followed Torah law for thousands of years. That is why there are still recognizable Jews today.
How much guilt does the FDA allow?
we would like to move towards a more vegie diet
The Fauxburger.
Got it. Thanks.
Though I've never tried one, I've heard the same thing.
I still wouldn't call it "The World’s First Kosher Cheeseburger." If we're going to use "-burger" only for genuine meat products (perhaps allowing the most obvious exceptions, like "veggieburger"), the Impossible Burger wouldn't count. If we are going to use "-burger" more freely for foods that aren't meat, the Impossible Burger isn't the first. It may be the closest simulation of meat so far, but I'd use a less misleading description. I don't like the food equivalent of clickbait.
I've also heard of, and heard objections about, "kosher cheeseburgers" made with meat and pareve soy cheese. For example, from 2008,
“Jewish law is very concerned for appearances,” said Rabbi Basil Herring, the executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America. “Not only should you always do the right thing, but it should be seen as the right thing.“Any Jew who keeps kosher knows a cheeseburger is not permissible. But . . . what happens if a young kid, a 10-year-old, goes in there and says, hmm, maybe cheese on a burger is OK?”
The White Castle by our house had a veggie burger they were advertising for a while. I wonder if it was this product. I asked the drive thru person one day if they sell many of them and she said maybe one or two a day.
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