Beyond Meat vs Real Beef: A Review By Two Omnivores
Disclaimer: this post is NOT sponsored by Beyond Meat. We paid for the food you see here!
We’ve always been a bit curious about plant-based meat substitutes. We love meat — it was a huge part of our diet growing up as kids. Our dinner plates almost always had meat.
Chicken. Carrots. Rice. 🐔
Steak. Peas. Baked Potatoes. 🐄
Pork Chops. Salad. Scalloped Potatoes. 🐖
Turkey. Stuffing. Sweet Potatoes. 🦃
You get the idea — we grew up with meat. We don’t plan on going vegetarian, but we’ve been incorporating more and more vegetarian recipes into our meal plans when we can. Why? Meat is expensive, mainly. But we also know that consuming a lot of meat has environmental consequences as well (more on that later).
So here we are. Trying fake meat that’s marketed towards omnivores. 🍔
In addition to reading this post, we recommend you watch Mark Rober’s video: Feeding Bill Gates a Fake Burger (to save the world). His video gave us the inspiration we needed to finally try plant-based meat substitutes and make this post!
Sidenote: We also tried a plant-based burger from Sol Cuisine. But it was not good at all, which is why we aren’t really going to talk about it much in this post besides to remind you about how bad it was.
Why Didn’t You Try The Impossible Burger?
Now you’re probably thinking, “Wait, why didn’t you try the Impossible Burger too?”
Well, we wanted to. We searched high and low for it. And by that, we mean we went to Earth’s General Store in Edmonton, AB because this reddit post led us to believe they carried it. Now if you live in Edmonton (there is a small chance you’re one of our friends, hi), then we want to let you know: they do not carry the Impossible Burger! Womp womp. The post lied. Or at least, the people commenting were likely telling the truth at the time. What we think happened is that someone brought some up from the US and sold them. (“Psst, yo, you wanna buy some burgers?”) Is that legal? We don’t know.
According to this article, Impossible Foods just got the green light to launch its plant-based burgers in Canada. So in the meantime, we tried Beyond Meat and that other sh*tty “burger” that we will not talk about. When the Impossible Burger is available in Canada, we’ll definitely try it!
Why Plant-Based Meat? Should I Become a Vegetarian?
Now, we love meat. Cows taste great. Chicken is tasty. (We’re preparing ourselves for the comments from angry vegans.) If you research the impact of plant-based meat vs real beef or vegetarian diets vs omnivores, you’ll see mixed results — some studies say vegetarian or vegan is better for the environment, others say that it depends or that flexitarian is better.
So, what do you believe?
We can’t conclusively say “plant-based meat is better for the environment is better than eating real beef” because we’re not scientists and haven’t studied the full impact. This study conducted by the Centre for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan found that the Beyond Burger generated 90% less greenhouse gas emissions and 46% less energy. (But please note that this study was commissioned by Beyond Meat, so it’s totally biased).
However, we do know this:
Livestock takes up a TON of land that could be used to grow other crops that have smaller carbon footprint (less cows = less cow farts = less greenhouse gas emissions).
Land that isn’t being used for cows or other crops can be reclaimed by natural vegetation. The natural vegetation will remove CO2 from the atmosphere via photosynthesis and soil carbon re-accumulation (dirt can store CO2 from the atmosphere 😮).
If the meat you eat is not produced locally, it takes even more greenhouse gasses to ship the product where you live.
Based on this information, we’ll leave it up to you to decide. Personally, we try to eat local as much as we can, and are working to reduce the amount of meat that we eat (for both environmental and health reasons).
Mark Robber and Bill Gates also discuss the environmental impact of meat starting at the 9:50 mark in their video — we recommend giving it a watch to learn about how raising beef to eat is inefficient. If you want to go even more in-depth, you can try to read this research article without going cross-eyed.
How Does Beyond Meat Taste?
We’re going to start out by stating that obviously fake meat doesn’t taste exactly like real meat. No matter what you do, if there isn’t beef in the hamburger patty, it’s going to be missing the beefy taste. That being said, the Beyond Burger does an acceptable job at tasting the part — it’s definitely not as off-putting as the soy-based burger that we tried (there is a lot of work left to be done for that one). Where the Beyond Burger really shines is in the texture. We have no idea how much time and resources were put into the R&D for the texture, but it obviously paid off. In our opinion, the texture was scarily accurate.
If you want to try out the Beyond Burger for yourself, you can get it via Amazon Fresh if you live in the US!
Note: This is an affiliate link that helps us earn a small commission from your purchase. Each purchase supports the blog so we can continue to make content! If you use this link, we really appreciate it!
Can you tell the difference?
Trevor: I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: I don’t like hamburgers. For me it’s a texture thing. For whatever reason, the texture of ground beef makes my skin crawl. (I’ve been working on it, okay?) So how did the Beyond Burger taste to a guy who doesn’t like burgers? It tasted alright to be honest. The texture gave me the same “shiver running up my spine” feeling that normal burgers do, so, good job Beyond Meat.
Brittany: I think if we do this again (which we will when the Impossible Burger comes to Canada) I want to be blindfolded and not know which burger I’m eating — real or fake. I’m pretty sure I could spot the difference, but I think it’d make for a better experiment. When it comes to a real burger vs a Beyond Burger I definitely prefer real meat. There was an obvious taste difference, but the texture and appearance of the Beyond Burger was spot-on.
Is Beyond Meat Healthy?
Short answer: like everything else, yes in moderation.
This is what’s in the Beyond Burger, according to their website: Water, Pea Protein*, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Refined Coconut Oil, Rice Protein, Natural Flavors, Cocoa Butter, Mung Bean Protein, Methylcellulose, Potato Starch, Apple Extract, Pomegranate Extract, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Vinegar, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Sunflower Lecithin, Beet Juice Extract (for color).
So, nothing too crazy. Here is how the nutritional information stacks up vs a frozen burger patty from Costco:
| Beyond Meat Plant-Based Patties (113g) |
Kirkland Lean Ground Beef Patties (113g) |
|
|---|---|---|
| Calories | 250 | 250 |
| Fat | 18g | 17g |
| Saturated Fat | 6g | 10g |
| Cholesterol | 0mg | 75mg |
| Sodium | 390mg | 65mg |
| Potassium | 300mg | 0mg |
| Carbohydrates | 3g | 0g |
| Fibre | 2g | 0g |
| Sugars | 0g | 0g |
| Protein | 20g | 21g |
| Vitamin A | 0% | 0% |
| Vitamin B | 0% | 0% |
| Calcium | 8% | 0% |
| Iron | 25% | 15% |
So, should you go to town and slam back plant-based burgers? No. But if you want to try something new or want to lessen your impact on the environment but still enjoy a burger, definitely give it a shot.
The Future of Plant-Based Meat
What needs to happen to make people more likely to jump on the plant-based train? Well, for starters the price needs to drop. In Canada, a pack of two Beyond Burgers costs $7.99 (they were actually on sale the day we bought them, so we only paid $5.99). This comes out to $3.99 per burger regularly. That’s an expensive patty! The price definitely needs to come down for it to be more competitive, and for it to be considered a real alternative for omnivores.
The other thing that needs to happen for the Beyond Meat (or any plant-based burger) to become more accepted is for the taste to get better. Right now, it’s not bad — but as two judgy omnivores who love meat, it could be better. We aren’t food scientists, so we honestly have no idea how one even starts to begin to mimic the taste of beef, but if you can’t close the gap between the two, plant-based meat is going to end up being the thing that your weird hippy uncle and his essential oils girlfriend brings over to family potlucks.
Was the Beyond Burger good? Yea, it’s alright.
Is it healthy? Yes, in moderation.
Is it better for the environment than real beef? Probably.
Should it be cheaper? Definitely.
Should you try it yourself? For sure, that’s the only way you’ll know if you like it or not!
We hope that you enjoyed reading about our first time with plant-based meat!
Have you tried plant-based meat? Do you love it? Hate it? Love a certain brand? Let us know in the comments below!