14 patents for every fake burger bite

This article was previously published on August 5, 2020 and has been updated with new information.

Imitation meat is all the rage and although plant-based meat alternatives have been on the market for years, the industry is gaining pace, promoting ‘burgers’. Meatless as a sustainable solution to feed the world. However, the green image is an illusion predicted on a product, which is the epitome of unnaturalness.

Impossible Foods, which once caused a stir with burgers that don’t “bleed” like real meat, is one of the leaders in the fake meat industry. Its website suggests plant-based meat is better for you and the planet,^first But eating an Impossible burger is not like eating a plate full of vegetables.

According to Seth Itzkan, environmental futurologist, co-founder and co-director of Soil4Climate, who argues that fake meat products are destroying the environment by perpetuating a harmful dependence on genetically modified technology. (GE) cereals while accelerating land loss and counteracting regenerative agriculture.²

Impossible Food has 14 patents, more than 100 patents pending

Impossible Foods products are unlike anything found in nature. That’s why the company holds 14 patents, and at least 100 more are pending. “It’s not food; it’s software, it’s intellectual property – 14 patents, in fact, in every bite of the Impossible Burger with over 100 patents pending,” Itzkan told Medium. authorized animals from chicken to fish”.³

“It’s iFood, the next killer app. Just download it to your taste. This could be the hot spot for Bill Gates, their über investor. It’s food operating system (FOS) , perhaps a precursor to the merger with Microsoft.MS-FOOD .

The business model is already ingrained in Silicon Valley – licensing the core technology (protein synthesis) while seeking vertical integration of the supply chain, in this case, not from the coder to users, but from genetic engineers to protein seekers. “

Natural foods cannot be patented, but Impossible Foods products certainly can. The Impossible Burger is a meat substitute unlike any other on the market due to the addition of soy leghemoglobin or heme. The company says this makes meat taste like meat, and in plants, leghemoglobin is the protein that carries heme, an iron-containing molecule.

Initially, Impossible Foods harvested leghemoglobin from the roots of soybeans, but that method was not sustainable. Instead, they turned to genetic engineering, which uses the technology to insert DNA from the soybean plant into yeast, creating GE yeast with the gene for soy leghemoglobin.⁴

Impossible Foods products are heavily processed and created in production rooms – not grown or found in the wild. Their science project creations are also heavily protected, as evidenced by 14 patents assigned to Impossible Foods, discovered by Itzkan:⁵

Food can’t be junk food

While the industrialized meat production that occurs on the centralized cattle ranching facilities (CAFOs) responsible for most of the meat consumed in the US is an environmental and ethical atrocity, Creating fake meat in high-tech labs is not the answer.

Impossible Foods only continued to maintain the consumption of unprocessed foods, of which Americans were already overeating. Americans eat not only processed foods, but 57.9% of super-processed foods⁶ – products at the “significantly altered” end of the spectrum are strongly associated with obesity,⁷ poor health and premature death.⁸

Friends of the Earth (FOE), a grassroots environmental group, has released a report that raises important questions about the growing trend towards animal substitutes. In it, they point out the highly processed nature of these products:⁹

“A variety of ‘processing aids’ are used to make some of these products, including organisms (such as genetically engineered bacteria, yeast and algae) that produce proteins and chemicals to extract the protein.

For example, chemicals such as hexane are used to extract ingredients of foods, such as proteins (from peas, soybeans, corn, etc.) or compounds (from genetically modified bacteria) to create Xanthan gum… no need to declare these ingredients.

Other processing aids (e.g. bacteria, yeast, algae), including those genetically engineered to produce proteins, are also currently not required to be disclosed on packaging. The lack of transparency makes it difficult to assess the inputs and the impact of their use. “

Many of these foods, including Impossible Foods’ imitation meat, are made with GMO soybeans, which is ecologically devastating in itself, in part because it is often grown in places where grasslands and savannahs are essential. ever had. That soybean was sprayed with many of the cancer-related herbicide glyphosate, which poses additional potential human health and environmental risks.

Not surprisingly, testing by consumer group Moms Across America found the Impossible Burger to contain the ingredient Roundup glyphosate and its breakdown product AMPA,^ten at 11.3 parts per billion – 11 times higher than the glyphosate found in Beyond Meat Burger,¹¹ the company’s biggest fake meat competitor.

‘There is no place for nature’ at must-try dishes

Impossible Foods even focuses on regenerative farming practices, which promote optimal nutrition and health, while helping to prevent pollution and restore damaged ecosystems. However, as Itzkan noted:^twelfth

“In this food-making software scenario, there’s no room for nature. Impossible Burger production starts with glyphosate-sprayed soybeans grown on grasslands that used to be healthy pastures. It is then infused with manures. The heme element is produced by patented yeast in a high-tech laboratory for blood-like upgrades.

In the end, it ends up being a piece of plastic-wrapped plastic that some people are brave enough to swallow. Just fry with canola oil and the illusion of a finished meal. “

Impossible Foods also claims that they have a better carbon footprint than live animal farms and has hired Quantis, a team of scientists and strategists to help their customers take actions based on scientific evidence. study, to prove their point.

According to an executive summary published on the Impossible Foods website, their products have reduced their environmental impact by 87% to 96% in the categories studied, including global warming potential, accounting for land and water consumption.¹³ However, this compares fake meat with meat from CAFO, which are notoriously destructive to the environment.

“The pretense that this software industry’s wealth-focused assault on the food sector is somehow better for people or the environment than just the worst aspects of it,” said Itzkan. livestock farming,” Itzkan said.¹⁴

The Grass Fed Farm represents a true renewable solution

White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, which produces high-quality grass-fed products using regenerative grazing, commissioned a similar analysis by Quantis and published a 33-page study showing a comparison Compare the emissions of White Oaks Pastures versus conventional beef production.¹⁵

While fake meat produced reduces carbon emissions by up to 96% in some categories, White Oaks has a negative total net emissions compared to meat produced with CAFO. Furthermore, grass-fed beef from the White Oak Pasture has a carbon footprint 111% lower than conventional US CAFO, and its renewable system effectively captures carbon in the soil, offsetting the emissions associated with beef production.¹⁶

“To the extent of our error,” the report notes, “it is likely that WOP [White Oak Pastures] climate-positive beef production. This would be very rare, and it’s unusual that producing something would have more benefits than simply not producing.”¹⁷ but it’s within the realm of possibility when it comes to properly raised grass-fed beef. Fake meat produced in a laboratory simply cannot be compared.

“It [the fake meat industry] completely ignore the rapidly growing regenerative movement that is giving so much hope to the planet at this critical time, healing landscapes, replenishing aquifers and mitigating fires,” according to Itzkan.” and fertilizers, fake meat scales that exacerbate grassland depletion while undermining a more legitimate solution. “¹⁸

Is There a Health Risk in Imitation Meat?

The motivation for plant-based meat alternatives is not healthful or even in favor of a vegan or vegetarian diet. People who are genuinely interested in eating a plant-based diet can do so by eating plants, and in doing so can enjoy the many health benefits that eating plant foods carries. again.

Many Impossible Foods patents reveal that their product is driven by profit and perhaps the ultimate goal is to completely replace real meat with a highly lucrative patented product.

It is well known that the consumption of unprocessed foods contributes to disease,¹⁹ but manufactured fake meat can also pose an additional risk. For example, the US Food and Drug Administration has raised concerns that the soy leghemoglobin in the Impossible Burger could be an allergen to humans.²⁰

Impossible Foods scientists also fed mice leghemoglobin for 28 days to determine the risk of an allergic reaction or toxicity. Dana Perls, from Friends of the Earth, pointed out that the mice exhibited altered blood chemistry “that could indicate kidney or other health problems,” which the company did not monitor.²¹

Consumer Reports senior scientist Michael Hansen added that there are no long-term studies of soy leghemoglobin in humans, although its creation produces at least 45 other proteins as byproducts, which have also been studied. consumption and needs further evaluation.²²

The reality is, imitation meat cannot replace the complex mixture of nutrients found in grass-fed beef and other high-quality livestock meats and it is likely that consuming unprocessed meats instead can lead to many of the same health problems caused by processed foods. Diet. To protect your health and the environment, skip patent-claimed fake foods and stick with foods that are naturally occurring instead.

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