We’ve been hearing so much hype about the newest product from Beyond Meat for months. “The Beast” is touted as the “delicious 1/4lb monster of untamed plant-protein.” Those who had advanced tastes of it have called it everything from “best vegan burger ever” to “total game-changer” and lots of other hyperbole in between. So when it launched this month we hit our local Whole Foods Market, found it in the frozen section and immediately taste tested it back home.
Before I get into the results of our taste test, I think it’s important to establish where Michael and I stand as reviewers on such a product. Back in our pre-vegan days, my favorite dead animal-derived food was cow-hamburgers. Sadly, I was known for making some of the best tasting ones and Michael always grilled them to perfection. Michael on the other hand, enjoyed the burgers I would make but he was never much of a “burger guy.” He always preferred the taste of chicken flesh. So when we each went vegan, we “missed” different animal foods. I have been on a quest for the perfect vegan burger ever since going vegan, whereas Michael had been on a search for the perfect vegan chicken. I have found a few great vegan burgers, most notably the ancho chile seitan burger from The Cinnamon Snail . It was tops my in my book for years (hurry up if you want to try it– they close and go out of business forever this coming Friday!) More recently, “The Big M” burger by Marty’s Vegan Fast Food is tops in my book. If you haven’t tried it, it’s worth the flight to New York City just to try these burgers. Talk about a game-changer! They taste exactly like a McDonald’s McCruelty Quarter Pounder with Cheese, but better and better for you. As for commercially available vegan burgers, I like Boca Burgers in the frozen section and for off-the-shelf vegan burgers, I like Field Roast’s Hand-Formed Burger best. But, to be clear, these do not taste like cow-flesh burgers. They taste like vegan burgers. And that’s okay with me.
A couple of years ago, when Beyond Meat hit the shelves with their first product, the Beyond Chicken Grilled Strips, it really was a game-changer for Michael in his quest for the perfect vegan chicken. While he had already adapted to eating many types of vegan chicken, the one by Beyond Meat was sheer perfection. Not just the taste, but the texture was eerily exact to chicken flesh. In fact, it was too similar for my tastes. I never enjoyed the Beyond Chicken because, even as an omnivore, I didn’t like the taste of chickens. I’m actually a bigger fan of soy-meat chickens like the ones by Gardein, most specifically because they don’t taste exactly like dead chicken flesh. When Beyond Meat came out with their crumbled vegan beef products, I was disappointed. I was hoping they would have been to vegan beef what Beyond Chicken had been to vegan chicken. It just didn’t taste a whole lot different to me than the existing ground vegan beef products, like the ones by LightLife or Tofurky. Oh well. Can’t win ’em all, right?
Okay, so now that you know our tastes background, let’s get back to the review. We were really excited to meet “The Beast”. When we opened the package, we were surprised to see such a large and flat burger. For some reason -probably the name- I expected to see something thicker, more substantial and “beastly”. Like the ancho chile seitan burger from The Cinnamon Snail. Nope. This was reminiscent of the pre-formed, flat patties that were served up in the school lunch room as kids. Okay. I adjusted my expectation and threw it on the grill. Like most vegan meats, it cooks quickly from frozen; just 3-4 minutes per side. I loaded it up with some fresh teriyaki-grilled onions and some sweet hickory barbecue sauce on a freshly toasted whole wheat bun, and threw on a slice of the Field Roast’s Vegan Chao Creamy Original Cheese. We each bit into our burgers… the moment of truth!
My vegan burger, all loaded up and ready to test
The verdit?? Meh.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a respectable veggie burger. However, for all of the hype in it’s pre-release, a “game-changer” it was not. In fact, it’s not much of a beast as we were both quite hungry after consuming these 265 calorie/ 16 gram of plant fat burgers. Perhaps it was the nearly 500 mg of sodium that sparked our hunger and thirst? I dunno. While it definitely beats the Gardein Beefless Burger in the taste department, Gardein’s wins from a nutrition level coming in with 1/4 of the fat, 1/2 the calories and equal in 16 g of protein. While Beyond Meat makes a big deal about having “more omega’s than salmon” and there is no indication of the amount present in Gardein’s burgers, Gardein wins by delivering a burger with 1/3 less sodium.
When it was all said and done, we both were left with a bad taste in our mouths, both literally and figuratively. We love Beyond Meat as a company. We love and support their mission and what they stand for. We wish we loved The Beast as much. It’s okay though, they all can’t be winners. And so, my quest continues.
