If I told you that plants were a type of meat, I’m not sure you would believe me. Well, hold on to your hats, kids, because according to our friends at Beyond Meat, they are, and allegedly, this “meat” makes a mean Beyond Burger.
Beyond Meat products replace animal proteins with meat made from plants. According to the Beyond Meat team, this replacement does “wonders for human health, for the environment, for the conservation of natural resources and for animals.”
Pretty cool, right? So with all that good stuff going on, what is it exactly that makes these Beyond Burgers so great?
Let’s start with the burger basics ⏤ One of the most important parts of any burger is the meat blend. The Beyond Burger is made up of pea protein, bamboo and beets. All of this blends together to give us 20 grams of protein (per serving).
Beyond Meat has worked super hard to make a plant-based burger that cooks, tastes and looks like the normal “meat” burger does. The beets give the burgers the classic red meat color and juiciness, two things that other meat-alternative burgers can lack.
When I heard of the Beyond Burger, I honestly laughed a little bit. I’m a sucker for a good veggie burger, but there is no way that these veggie burgers could be just as good as normal burgers. Obviously, I had to go try some, so I picked some up at my local Whole Foods store.
Now, an inside source told me to grill this thing for the best, most ~authentic~ outcome. I literally prepared this thing like I would have any other burger. Salt and pepper both sides, get some nice grill marks going (which actually showed up pretty well), top with American cheese, lettuce, tomato and smush it all between a potato bun.
Y’all… I. Was. Shook. The brains behind Beyond Meat aren’t kidding around. This burger was so good and definitely lived up to the hype. Although it didn’t taste exactly like a cheeseburger, it was pretty darn close, and I’m definitely planning on making more of these.
Beyond Meat also has other plant-based meat products available, such as the Beast Burger, Beyond Beef Crumbles and Beyond Chicken, which are available at select Whole Foods and Safeway stores.
There are so many ways to integrate plant proteins into any diet, why not make sure those ways are just as delicious as the meat alternatives? I will definitely be purchasing Beyond Burgers in the future. Who knows, maybe even my burger chef dad will like them.