Several food producers are working diligently to create a healthier hamburger.  They are currently developing a burger with minimal animal products, but has the appearance of a traditional meat hamburger. Their creation will look like a burger, make a sizzling sound on the grill like a burger, have the same smell, texture and taste, and even have a red center like a burger.   

Some of the population believes that it will be increasingly difficult to supply enough meat to the growing population.

“The demand for meat is going through the roof, and the world is not going to be able to satisfy that using animals — there’s just not enough space, not enough water,” said Patrick Brown, founder, and CEO of Impossible Foods during an interview with NPR the Salt.  

While vegetarians certainly applaud the introduction of a new and improved non-meat burger, the real goal is to attract the meat eaters and give them a delicious, convincing substitute to the traditional burger.   

Along with a group of researchers from Stanford University, biochemist Brown was the first to study this idea on the molecular level. After extensive research, they created a product from wheat, potato protein and heme, which comes from yeast. This new burger will be healthier because it will provide more protein, less fat, fewer calories and no cholesterol. Although supply is limited at the moment, companies are jumping on the bandwagon to market their version of this plant-based meat alternative. Two Californian companies, Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, are leading the pack. They have already introduced their novel plant-based burger that looks deceptively similar to its meat-based counterpart.

“The ultimate goal is to develop a way to produce all the foods we [traditionally] get from animals much more sustainably using scalable ingredients from plants and make these foods delicious, nutritious and affordable,” Brown said during an interview with The Guardian.    

Impossible Foods has begun a marketing plan targeting upscale restaurants in several large cities such as New York, San Francisco and Las Vegas. In Dallas, the Impossible Burger can be enjoyed at the Preston Center gourmet hamburger joint, HopDoddy.   Beyond Meat has chosen to market its product to select grocery stores such as Target, Whole Foods, and Kroger. According to their website, Beyond Meat’s plant-based beef alternative can be found locally at Whole Foods at Park Lane and Tom Thumb in Preston Center.