I am not getting paid for this. This is not an ad, this is not a sponsorship. This is an honest review from someone who was excited about this product.
Video review:
When I actually ate meat 20 plus years ago I liked my steak and burgers rare. Blue even, and one of the things that I have missed is that taste, and texture of a nice rare burger. This is why the Beyond Meat burger has been a really exciting product for me. Now I know that there are a lot of vegans out there who will not come close to a product that looks or tastes like an animal, sorry, but this review is not for you. As someone who loves the taste of meat but doesn’t like the cruelty behind it, this is really exciting for me.
Today I am going to review the Beyond Meat Beyond Burger. First of all, this item is not cheap, for two patties totalling 8 ounces you are going to pay $5 US. Then when you add the bun and all the fixings this is going to end up being a $10-$15 burger. The item will come to you looking pretty red, this is from the beet juice that is infused in the burger to give it the color. If you are a person whose stool turns red when eating beats keep this in mind so you don’t have an embarrassing doctor’s visit the next day. When grilling the burger I wasn’t able to quite get the grill marks on it that I was hoping for when I used my grill pan. The outside of the burger also didn’t look quite like I expected it to either. Because of the beet juice and the high fat content the texture and the inside of the burger did resemble a medium rare burger. This is something that until now has not been achieved in a vegan burger, so I will have to give Beyond Meat props for innovation. As mentioned earlier this burger is really high in fat, so if you are looking for a healthy burger then look else where. Most hamburgers have a sweet spot of 80% meat 20% fat that everyone loves, and although I am not privy to the secret recipe of this burger I am guessing that the company more than likely has this ratio in the burger because of how oily it is when touching the raw product and how much fat rendered out when cooking.
I cooked two patties, one plain and straight out of the box, the other I made a hamburger with. Eating it cooked with no seasonings, I thought the flavor was really similar to the other Beyond Meat burger products, the texture was more grainy and crumbly and more like a ground beef burger. I have to say that it was a pretty tasty burger patty. It is still missing that liquid bloodiness of the real thing, there is another product that is in really limited markets that is supposed to approximate that, and I am trying to get my hands on that one to test for you. I need to go out and contact them again in fact. The fact that Beyond Meat got the texture and the looks of this product really close is really exciting for me.
I also made a hamburger for my dad, who is a big meat eater. He really liked the size of the patty, he said the tallness of it was good. He normally eats his burger well done, so the color of it wasn’t as important to him, but was surprised to see it red. The texture of it was really close to that of a real burger he thought, although not quite perfect. And although this burger had a lot of oil in it, he appreciated that it wasn’t dripping out like a real hamburger normally does. He also thought that the cost was a bit much, and if served in a restaurant would be like a $12-$15 burger.
I really do like this product. It has a great taste and texture to it. It is probably the closest I have had yet. I still want to try the Impossible burger to see how it compares. Hopefully one day I will be able to. As someone who likes the taste of meat but not the cruelty, this really makes me hopeful for what is to come in the future. The cost and availability is still a bit prohibitive for me since Whole Foods is a bit out of the way for me.
The Beyond Burgers are currently only available in select Whole Foods stores in the United States. The list of locations can be found here:
If you tried these burgers, let me know what you thought of them. What do you like on your burger?
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Music by Memento Dubstep
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