Impossible Whopper-A Review

The only person I know who’d had Burger King’s new vegetable-based burger liked them a lot. I finally got around to trying one for lunch this past Thursday. I’m not vegan nor vegetarian, so I was viewing this very critically, and didn’t care about the outcome (other than I didn’t want to eat a bad burger for lunch). I was pleasantly surprised.

First, there is, given our state today, some controversy around it. Some vegans don’t like it since they put Mayo on it. (They seem to forget the old, “Have it your way” slogan.) Vegetarians and vegans are also upset because it’s cooked in the same broiler so it may come into contact with real beef and animal fat. I don’t think they’ve seen the tiny screen the burgers roll through the broiler on, but yes, that could happen. Burger King says they’re not targeting those markets anyway.

Many dieticians say it’s not really any healthier than the original beef Whopper. In fact, the Impossible Whopper has 9 more grams of carbs, and it has more sodium than its meatier counterpart. With that said, I hope people eating at a Burger King aren’t going there expecting it to be a health-food store.

So let’s get to the review. I’ll just lay it out right up front. If I had ordered a regular Whopper, and they gave me this one by mistake (wrapped in the regular Whopper wrapper…yes, the Impossible Whopper gets a green wrapper), I don’t think I could tell the difference. But here are some qualifiers. First, I get my Whoppers with everything but pickles (“have it your way,” remember?), so the meat is competing with a lot of other stuff. I did tear off a piece of just the patty to eat separately. I really still couldn’t tell there was much difference. The patty might have been a tiny bit dryer than the real patty, but you can get regular patties that are more or less dry depending on how long ago they came out of the broiler. The chew and mouth-feel were pretty close but maybe a bit mushier than regular ground beef.

My friend that really liked it has seen patties in the grocery store for $9 per pound. I’m not about to spend that for a meat substitute, and I wouldn’t go out of way to seek it out. However, if I’m eating at BK or anywhere else that has it, I might just go ahead and order it as an easy way to cut back on a little bit of red meat. If the grocery store price becomes more comparable to regular ground beef, I might buy it to cook with at home.