I had the same experience. I have tried both the impossible and beyond meat burgers and ended up not being able to finish them as I really didn't like the taste.
I had high hopes because I had watched these TV segments where they were eating them and saying how it tastes like a burger. But not for me.
I have never tried Beyond Meat and maybe I should give it a try but I am hesitant because of my experience with Impossible burgers. Obviously they must taste similar to meat and be tasty to the majority of people, but to me they taste nothing like meat and are quite disgusting. I know a few others that have the same reaction while most people at worse seem to think they taste like a low quality burger. I wonder what is in them that causes some like myself to have such a negative reaction to them and how large that percentage of people is.
Weird. I think the impossible burgers are ok but bland, but love Beyond meat.
I never bought any "veggie burger" products for at home, but would occasionally order one in a restaurant when it was the best option and thought they were always just sort of tolerable.
Beyond meat has been such a game-changer for me. I probably eat about 3-5 servings of a Beyond meat product per week now. Anecdotally, the only people I've seen who had a strongly negative reaction seemed to be overcooking them significantly.
I've tried Impossible Burger once in a some random bar. Was dissatisfied - texture was ok, but had weird after taste.
Also tried to cook some Beyond Meat burgers the other week. The stench was horrible, even my roommates noticed. Topped with mayo, garlic butter, bbq sauce and onions it did kinda hide the horrible flavour, but still I couldn't finish it. I could feel that horrible flavour for a day or two after.
Really had big hopes for it and will definitely try again, but for now it's a joke.
My problem as well. All the impossible burger or beyond meat stuff appears worse for you (nutritionally) than a real burger. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't that.
I've had both the Beyond Burger (at Veggie Grill, a vegetarian restaurant) and the Impossible Burger (at an actual burger restaurant).
I was extremely disappointed with the Beyond Burger-- it had a weird taste and I personally did not think it tasted anywhere remotely near real meat. It was oversalted, but I've heard some other people complain it's because the patty is already very salty and restaurants add more salt. It also might be a function of the fact that this was a vegetarian place and I don't think they're used to cooking burgers.
The Impossible Burger I was much more impressed with-- it still wouldn't fool me at all and I wouldn't quite replace beef with it yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing if they can improve it just slightly. For me, it doesn't have to taste exactly like beef before I would eat it over traditional burgers, it just needs to be a little closer. I would also like to try it somewhere that doesn't put as many fixings on it to taste the patty in a more pure form, since my burger was some miso-seaweed thing with strong flavors that could have been masking the patty (perhaps intentionally).
It was nearly a decade after I gave up meat that I first ate a Beyond or Impossible burger, but I felt they had the taste and texture of at least a cheap restaurant burger. Beyond has a more distinctive flavor than Impossible, though, which I would say doesn't really remind me of beef in any significant way.
I too prefer the Beyond Meat burger to the Impossible Burger, but I don't know about a meat eater not noticing. I love meat - especially beef, but lately I've also been trying meat alternatives.
Just recently, I ordered an Impossible Burger, and it just left me wanting beef. It's not that it was bad - the burger looked similar to beef, and was juicy and delicious. But it didnt taste like beef. Maybe it's different for others, but for me, the beef is the spotlight of a burger. Beyond and Impossible haven't gotten that beefy taste - at least to my buds.
When I cook a Beyond Meat burger at home, I usually add a little butter - I dont think there is enough fat, and I also add some Takii umami powder (which I believe is just salt, and ground up mushrooms). I think those additions help the illusion of beef. You could probably also cook the burger in rendered beef fat, and that would probably really help the beef flavor...probably defeating the point of meat alternatives though.
I wish I could cook an Impossible at home, just to experiment.
I've had a beyond meat burger, I'm curious to hear the opinion of others that have had one too because I thought it tasted terrible. The texture was nothing like real ground beef and neither was the flavour. It wasn't good different either - I'd much rather have a regular bean burger.
I feel like it's all marketing and they're just riding the hype wave caused by other better products or peoples desire for one. (I assume the Impossible Burger is better - they seem to have gone into more effort to replicate beef, but I haven't tried one)
Interesting take. I've always said Impossible tastes more like meat, but has a bad texture match, and Beyond tastes less like meat but has a better texture.
With that said, I think the flavor and quality of Beyond is higher, for me. Impossible still hovers around low-grade, poor texture ground beef. I want them both to be successful because the more options we have the better.
I think Impossible is likely to be more successful targeting current meat eaters, though, so you may be right about their longer term success.
I've found the variance of each burger to be highly dependent on the preparation, so I think a real fair test would be made-at-home side-by-side. I enjoy the Beyond patty made at home on a skillet without much extra besides a bun and catchup and mustard, this says a lot.
Have you tried the Impossible burger? I've had it at some restaurants (lots of other flavors at play) and it feels like meat, and with the other flavors it tastes very similar to a burger.
I tried the Beyond Meat patty, version 1 I think. Wondering if anyone else got an absolutely strange type of taste / sensation in their throat when they tried it? It wasn’t at all pleasant and really hard to describe. Kind of like - I don’t know - canola oil mixed with peanut - sort-of? While breathing in a thick gas. Very odd.
I was really hyped up to like it, but found it only somewhat like meat. I was impressed with the texture inside. The outer crust reminded me of warm cardboard. To be fair, I might have burned it so I do want to try it again. Really keen to try an Impossible Burger (anyone know if there’s somewhere in Australia that serves them?).
My whole place smelled sickly sweet after cooking it as well. I’ve seen some people describing it as smelling like cat food, which I’d agree with.
Beyond Meat/Impossible Burger were disgusting to me (compared to regular beef), and they were dyed bright red and stayed bright red when they were cooked which is weird and not like meat.
Where did you have this burger? My experience with Impossible Burgers (at The Counter) is not at all like this. They were a pretty good facsimile of meat. I’d go so far as to say they changed my opinion on meat substitutes.
Previously, I was in the same camp as all those here saying they prefer delicious food that doesn’t pretend to be meat - but I think I’d choose an Impossible Burger over that now if I was in the mood for a burger.
I didn't care for the first iteration of the Impossible burger either. I thought it tasted just like a Morning Star Farms Grillers Prime, making it nothing special in veggie-burger land.
However, it seems to have improved significantly, to the point that twice now I've thought they accidentally gave me real beef, had a meet-eating friend confirm, and after talking to the waiter and cook and taking a much closer look decided I was wrong.
I love Beyond burgers too, but they are more distinct from real beef as far as my >10yr vegetarian tongue can tell.
I had high hopes because I had watched these TV segments where they were eating them and saying how it tastes like a burger. But not for me.
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