Impossible Foods is billing its Impossible Burger as a healthier, more sustainable option than beef, but when tested by consumer advocacy group Moms Across America (MAA), concerning levels of the herbicide glyphosate were found in the food. It’s not at all surprising, considering the Impossible patty is made mostly of genetically engineered (GE) soy protein.
You can find Impossible products in more than 5,000 restaurants in the U.S., Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore, in locations ranging from fine dining establishments to food trucks and theme parks. Even fast food outlets like Burger King and White Castle have jumped on the meatless fake burger bandwagon, with the former featuring the new Impossible Whopper that bills itself as “100% Whopper, 0% Beef.”
The glaring issue with fake foods such as these is that they’re claiming to be a healthier alternative to conventional burgers, but in fact are nothing more than highly processed pseudo-food – not the real food that so many Americans are after.
After revealing the glyphosate residues in the Impossible Burger, MAA called upon consumers to ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to cancel the license for glyphosate in light of the increasing health risks.
Impossible Foods responded:
“Nothing is more important for human health, global food security and the future of the world than replacing the use of animals in food production. In fact, most of the agricultural pesticides used in the US are applied to crops fed to livestock. So no single step would do more to reduce pesticide exposure then eliminating the use of livestock in food production. That’s our mission.”
This misses the point. It’s clear that alternatives are needed to the concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) involved in producing most meat. Conservation group WWF told The Guardian that they had found that 60 percent of global biodiversity loss is due to meat-based diets straining resources.
However, the solution isn’t to remove animals from the system but rather to include them in accordance with the laws of nature. Rather than housing livestock separately from other animals and crops, livestock is integrated into a symbiotic, complementary system that mimics the way nature works.
As for sustainability, Friends of the Earth (FOE), a grassroots environmental group, noted that Impossible Foods is making confusing promotional claims, sustainability among them:
“The Impossible Burger is marketed as ‘sustainable,’ … despite the lack of data on energy consumption, emissions, or dependency on industrial feedstocks like genetically engineered corn used to feed the genetically engineered yeast that produce key ingredients.”
There’s also a lack of transparency regarding disclosure of processing aids used to make some alternative meat products, as they do not have to be listed on labels. These products are manufactured from start to finish and involve the use of man-made ingredients.
The complex mix of nutrients and cofactors that exist in real food cannot be recreated by an assembly of individual components. As a general rule, man-made foods are vastly inferior to natural, whole foods and always will be.
Article adapted from Mercola.com.
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