Freakonomics Radio on The Future of Meat

Freakonomics Radio did a show on The Future of Meat last week. They talked to the CEO of Impossible Foods about his company’s Impossible Burger, a plant-based concoction engineered to look and cook and taste oddly like real beef. The description of the process and glowing reviews of it made me want to try one right there in the car. I managed to wait about three days until we went to a local restaurant that had an Impossible Burger. Yes, it’s a couple of dollars more than a regular cow-burger, but dang is it an eerily good substitute. It doesn’t taste exactly like beef, but to me it’s an even trade, because there’s no chance of the gross-out factor that can happen when you bite on a stray piece of gristle. (Sorry. Ugh.) We’ve also had the Beyond Meat burger at our local Burger Bach and it, too, is shockingly good, and in a way that makes you not care that it’s not real meat. As these companies get better at doing this, and they scale up and the prices come down, why wouldn’t I always go for one of these if they’re available?