More importantly, while I like the taste of meat too much to give up on it, I would also very much prefer that it could be had without killing animals. I don't think plant-based meat is going to be the ultimate solution to this - more likely, it'll be the lab-grown stuff. But, either way, it requires investments from the food industry to reach maturity, and those won't happen unless there's a real customer interest. Buying fake-meat burger is a way to express that interest.

I've tried to go on vegetarian diets before, but I just can't do it. I always feel weak and just generally "not right". I don't eat a ton of meat, but I find it really difficult to abstain 100%.

An Impossible Burger, however, completely satisfies my cravings for meat. It's not just that it tastes like meat, but I feel sated after eating an Impossible or Beyond Burger in a way I just don't feel eating a normal veggie burger.

It's the ultimate fake burger that has a 1/10 of the environment while being vegan.

Now if there was an equivalent for chicken then it I would never eat another animal again!

With Impossible Burgers, though, it really tastes and feels like I'm eating a real burger. It completely satiates my desire for meat, and it makes my body feel "good" from an energy perspective.

I love hamburgers and for me, it's the biggest loss after becoming a vegetarian. Impossible is the closest I can get to recreating that experience.

I switched to vegetarian because of the animal suffering/morality angle. I have for a long time felt that it was the right thing to do, but I liked eating meat so it was hard for me to do it. The pandemic gave me an opportunity to make the switch and be more consistent.

I wonder if your tastes have just changed. I’m not veggie, and I love the impossible and beyond burgers. Easily the best fake-meat I’ve had, and for the cause I think that’s really important. I.e, better for the cause to match taste of carnivores than those who have been veggie for a decade.

Curious what existing meat alternatives you think are good. I’ve always been really disappointed with anything besides like picking tofu in Thai food or paneer in Indian food.

Imagine my disappointment when all the restaurants in my area replaced their excellent vegetable burgers with things like Beyond and Impossible. To each their own, but it’s not just a rational issue of “is this an animal”, but also a subjective question of taste.

I want to eat less meat not because of mumbo jumbo health stuff but because the meat industry is just cruel to animals. I wish I had the fortitude to eat no meat, but my hope is fake meat will get to the point where I don't miss real meat anymore, so I support it.

And sorry, impossible burger tastes better than most vegan varieties, which aren't really just "vegan" by the strict definition but must fulfill some other strange moral criteria.

But there's something about engineered food that doesn't sit right. Am I alone?

And honestly it seems a bit selfish to not at least try the less environmentally damaging option.

I’ve seen a lot of hit pieces about impossible foods, and it stinks of beef producer propaganda.

Personally, I think eating beef is disgusting. I have no problem that others want to eat it. Freedom of choice! But I for one am super happy that these alternatives are becoming more available.

Impossible burgers make fake meat palatable to non vegetarians, and the less beef we eat, the better. Your average joe burger consumer would never eat a “Whole Foods, plant based mushroom burger”. Why? They all taste like crap unless you’re into that kind of thing. So having a viable meat alternative that anyone can enjoy can only be for the better.

In the long term, plant-based meat substitutes should be cheaper to produce than actual meat, and if you can get a burger that tastes just like a regular meat burger, but is cheaper, that's also a win. Burger King already features the Impossible Whopper, but at a premium. If that becomes cheaper than a regular meat Whopper, a lot of people, and a lot of other fast food chains will follow. So that's the economical perspective of it.

I'm in no way a vegetarian. And I'm too set in my childhood-established food biases to make huge changes. (I tried for a year or two. It didn't take.) But the Impossible and Beyond burgers are close enough for me. Could I tell them apart in a patty taste test? Probably. But once it's on a bun with cheese and barbecue sauce and whatnot, I don't notice a difference.

So at that point, I'm like, "Cows are nice animals." I have made the acquaintance of a few and I like them. For an equivalent experience, I can either kill the cow or not. So we've been gradually shifting toward the high-grade fake meats. I look forward to further improvements on this front.

However, the founders might be going after a different market than vegetarians like ourselves. They are going after the unwashed masses who aren't vegetarian. Providing meat analogues that are meat-ie might get people who are vegetarian to slowly cut out real meat from their diets. This is exactly what we need for the environment.

Ugh. First: The vegetarians that I know don't like meat. So making a veggie burger that tastes like the thing they don't like is just dumb.

Guessing anecdotally, I know as many vegetarians as you. Almost every one of them is happy to have a good burger option. I'm sure some % would be ok without a meat clone but the utility alone of having fast-food chains offer good vegetarian food is amazing. My non vegetarian friends have tried the beyond and impossible burgers and the vast majority have found them to be a satisfactory alternative to conventional beef patties.

Second: When I tasted an Impossible Burger, it was awful. It tasted like a horrible veggie burger.

You are probably in the minority here or you didn't have it prepped well. I'd recommend trying one at umami burger as so far, I have found their preparation the most reliable and delectable.

I personally reduced my meat consumption for environmental and health reasons

That's great, and precisely why this space is taking off.

By contrast, I would never serve 'meat-alikes' to my vegetarian friends. I always cook them proper veggie dishes because many of them don't like the flavours and textures they associate with dead animals.

I like vegetables too, obviously, but sometimes I just want a burger.