The new meatless burgers on the market are being called food chemistry at its finest being promoted as having the same flavor and aroma as meat, and they even bleed.
McGill University's director of the office for science and society Joe Schwarcz considers himself a burger connoisseur and was pleasantly surprised by the Beyond Meat Burger and Impossible Burger (only available in the US).
They're made by ground up pea and bean protein, but will not be as healthy as consumers may think.
"The real reason to try these is for environmental reasons. It's not for health reasons," said Schwarcz. "If you look at the chemical composition, the saturated fat is basically the same as in meat. It's actually somewhat higher in salt."
Environmentally, the non-meat burgers are far superior to their meat cousins.
"Let's face it. Animal agriculture is not a very efficient way to go about eating plant products; using the animal to transform the plants to our food," said Schwarcz. "There's a lot of concern these days about growing all that food just to feed animals, which, of course, requires transportation, requires the use of pesticides, fertilizers etc."
