"While it may appear that a Beyond Burger has more sodium than its animal-based counterpart, it’s important to note that the Beyond Burger is a fully seasoned product," she says. One big difference is the amount of sodium, but Sassos points out that this has to be looked at in context. "But saturated fat is more damaging in terms of heart disease than dietary cholesterol is," points out Taub-Dix. The Beyond Burger, however has no cholesterol, compared with beef's 70 mg. Both burgers have a good amount of protein, and the Beyond has an added boost of 2 g of fiber (though Blatner points out that you can add more fiber by topping your hamburger with lettuce and tomato). The latest variation of the Beyond Burger has 14 g of fat, including 5 g of saturated fat, which puts in about on par with a grass-fed beef burger (Beyond's saturated fat comes from coconut oil and cocoa butter). "In our tests, we found the latest Beyond Burger to have a more substantial bite and meaty texture too." "The Beyond Burger has changed and improved over the years, so the newest version actually has fewer calories and total fat than its predecessor," adds Sassos. “If you’re a vegetarian who occasionally wants to grill out with a juicy burger, these are great,” says Dawn Jackson Blatner, RDN, author of The Superfood Swap. Two things Beyond Burgers don't have that some animal meat might contain: antibiotics and hormones. "The newest version is packed with vitamins and minerals, most notably providing 20% of the daily value for iron and 100% of the daily value for vitamin B12, which are two nutrients of concern for vegans and vegetarians," says the Good Housekeeping Institute's Nutrition Lab Director, Stefani Sassos, RDN. FYI: The beet juice and pomegranate give the burger its meat-like “blood.” A Beyond Burger, however, includes: water, pea protein, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein, natural flavors, dried yeast, cocoa butter and methylcellulose it also contains less than 1% of potato starch, salt, potassium chloride, beet juice color, apple extract, pomegranate concentrate, sunflower lecithin, vinegar, lemon juice concentrate, vitamins and minerals (zinc sulfate, niacinamide, pyridoxine hydrochloride, cyanocobalamin, and calcium pantothenate). In a basic hamburger, all you'll find is ground beef, and perhaps some seasoning and an egg to bind it. This means that the Beyond Burger is highly processed with a long list of ingredients, points out Bonnie Taub-Dix, RDN, creator of and author of Read It Before You Eat It. The end result is a product that uses vegetable proteins to create the same juicy, chewy, "bloody" meat as animal flesh - without actually harming any animals. The trick, he explained, was figuring out how to turn those into a fibrous, meaty substance without using an animal's digestive system as the processing machine. And all these elements are present in plants. The widespread availability of these meat alternatives is great news for vegetarians, but are Beyond Burgers a healthier choice? And what the heck is actually in them?Įthan Brown, the creator of Beyond Meat (the company that makes the Beyond Burger as well as Beyond Sausage, Beyond Beef Crumbles, Beyond Ground Beef and the newest additions, Beyond Jerky, Beyond Chicken Tenders, and Beyond Steak) told an NPR podcaster that his a-ha moment came when he realized that meat is made of five basic elements: amino acids, lipids, a small amount of carbohydrates, trace minerals and water. (Beyond’s competitor, the Impossible Burger, is also widely available, notably as a Burger King Whopper.) If you’d prefer to eat your cruelty-free burger at home, you can buy a pack of Beyond Burgers at Whole Foods, Target and numerous other major supermarkets and grocery stores. Now, a few years later, these plant-based burgers have become available for non-meat-eaters (and curious omnivores) all across the country, including fine-dining restaurants as well as fast-food and casual-dining chains such as Carl’s Jr.,and TGIFridays. The big difference - no animals were harmed to make it. But the Beyond Burger was something else entirely, a juicy patty that looks and tastes just like a big old hunk of ground beef. Before that, a "veggie burger" could have meant anything from a mushy mixture of black beans to a crispy fried portobello mushroom to any combo of seeds, nuts and tofu. When the Beyond Burger first arrived in supermarkets and restaurants in 2016, it completely revolutionized the plant-based burger market.
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