Burger King's Impossible Whopper. A Review.

So, I have a couple of things I should mention first before I write this in full:

1) I'm an omnivore, but I'm not one of those meat eaters that think meat should be in every meal or it's not a meal - I'll do an opinion post about this at some point. 

2) I'm not a fan of the meat Whopper. On the rare occasion that I'll get a BK I won't ever choose one...and to take this a step further; I'm not a fan of BK on the whole.

I think these add some context to this review. I'm not doing a side-by-side comparison with my favourite burger, by my favourite vendor, and I'm not resisting the meat-free movement, I just think it's been done badly thus far. Any how, I digress. Let's crack on. 

TL;DR. Pleasantly surprised and excited for the future of meat-free food.

It was a rainy evening which, when you live in the UK doesn't narrow it down to a specific time of year at all, but it wasn't long after the launch of this burger. I can't pretend that I wasn't curious about how this would present itself?  I've had veggie burgers in the past, and man. They're disappointing. Yeah, I get it, you've added spinach to the mix because of the iron, but now you've made it green. Green meat is not good quality meat, so any meat eater will at some level, automatically reject a burger that's green. When the entire industry has been pushing "100% beef/no additives/nothing else" type branding for years, it's a hard sell when your burger has 14 ingredients to give it texture and moisture. It's pretty obvious why a lot of meat eaters reject the concept when the options just aren't great. If you want people to go meat free, you need to start offering them like-for-like options. I don't care how well you spice them, cauliflower "wings" are not chicken wings, and will never replace them. 

So when this burger arrived, I opened the wrapper with some anticipation. Let's be clear, my expectations were real low, but if you want to see this world not just survive but to also thrive? Steps forward needed to be taken, and this has the potential to be one of those. Is it an issue that it's not suitable for vegetarians due to the cooking methods? I don't think so. Meat Free =! Suitable for Vegetarians, not in this context. I see this burger as a step towards making meat free accessible to the hardened (and probably fussy) meat eater,(and we all know a few of those.!)  

It's commonly known these days that the best burgers are made from simply smashing the patty and leaving it well alone. This keeps the texture of the meat intact, it has a bite that's uneven, it's welcoming and frankly, exciting. On the flip side, when making meatballs you *ahem* beat the meat. This creates a smooth almost paste like substance, and this helps to form the clean shape and, unsurprisingly, delivers the smooth texture. You can see these differences across the burger quality scale in any supermarket. Their top-end premium home brands will be as close to the non-uniform smashed patty as their corporate rigid uniform regulations allow them to be (read: not even close.) Whereas, take a mooch over to the freezer sections where you'll find the boxes of 12 burgers for a couple of quid. If you eat one these burgers, they'll remind you of the burgers you got in school on Burger Day, or in one of the stereotypical burger vans you'd find on the side of the A1 motorway. These are smooth in texture, and the taste? They may not provide a punch in 

BK UK Marketing Image

the face of deep and earthy meat flavour, but they're certainly not offensive or unpleasant. They will do just fine for that beach party, or the Ad Hoc BBQ your partner has decided you're throwing because it's the one day in June where the sun is out and now you're forced to fight your way around the supermarket trying to find supplies like everyone else in the world, apparently.

This is exactly where I would place the Meat-Free Whopper. Which, on the face of it doesn't sound like a compliment. But that's where you're wrong! To judge this you need to take into account where we've come from as a species, and what BK are trying to do - I don't know for certain, I've never worked for the company and don't know anyone that does. It's not trying to be the best burger in the world, it's trying simply to not be a classic veggie burger. And that is something it's doing really very well. It wants to be the transition burger that meat eaters try, and get surprised by. It wants to open the eyes of the suspicious, and if it's given the chance then that's exactly what this burger can do.

It's not a bad burger by any stretch. It's perfectly passable (as far as Whoppers go), and I would be surprised if most people could tell the difference between this and one of those cheap BBQ burgers from the shops. Unfortunately, the hard-core meat eaters will compare it to the best burgers on the market and I feel that's an unfair comparison to make. 

Will it change the world? No, not on it's own. But, the first electric car wasn't a Tesla. Change is coming, and the next steps will be truly incredible... and they'll need to be because of the comparisons that will be made. Electric cars are much farther along this path (pun not intended) than meat-free food, and the rhetoric is still comparing them to the very best that fossil fuel vehicles offer.

Whether you look at the meat-free movement as an anti-animal harm movement or an environmental issue is irrelevant. This burger is a massive step in the right direction. We have a long way to go, but with each step forward our future becomes brighter. 

Try it, be surprised.