Food Review: Beyond Meat Beast Burger

I started eating veggie burgers on occasion probably about five or six years ago.  I started with Boca Burgers for lunch.  They are a soy-based burger and while you'd never mistake them for the real thing, they were good to throw in every now and then for something different.  Then I moved on to Trader Joe's Thai Sweet Chili Veggies Burgers.  I didn't taste anything particularly thai about them but they are like crack patties.  They taste like Thanksgiving stuffing to me and I love me some stuffing, yo!  The only problem with those is they don't keep me very full for long.  They are soy based also which isn't a huge issue but depending on the media cycle soy is either a-okay or the devil that will bring you down.

I started hearing a lot from Whole Foods about the soy free Beyond Meat and how amazing they were.  The hype was that they actually cook like a real burger...juicy and even blood drip with some beet trickery.  "Balderdash!  I must try them for myself!" 

So we did and here is our review.

23g of protein!?!  Yes, please! 

Here are the nutritional facts:

The sodium is a little higher than I'd like but given the size, it's actually pretty good and not too high over the Boca sodium for a lot more product.  The fat is higher but it's the good fats.  I was happy to see 60% Vitamin D, 40% on some B vitamins and 45% on Vitamin A.

Here's a look at the ingredients.

This is their mission in case you're interested.

Out of the box, they kind of looked like real burgers.

Heck, even when you do the flip after three minutes, it really started looking like a burger.

There's that juiciness and a minute or so later the "rare" look of blood that I called balderdash on! 

You just slap it together as you would a regular burger.  (Obviously, using lettuce leaves if cutting carbs is your objective.)

But how did it taste?

Honestly, its probably the best veggie burger I've ever had.  Flavorful, not too salty and substantial at 4 ounces.  If you like Boca burgers, these are very similar in taste but the beast burger is a lot bigger.  It has a nice, big burger appearance so the veggie eaters can still get in on the cookout action and not feel like they have some wimpy entree compared to everyone else.  You can see, it fully encompasses a brioche bun.  I'm actually going to offer these up to a friend who cut out meat the past year due to a fatty liver.  I think she's going to love them.  I added a slice of lacy cheese after I tasted it initially only because we wanted a lot of protein that night after a hard workout but with 23g of protein, it doesn't need it. 

Can you pull a switcheroo on Uncle Jim at the 4th of July grill fest and try to fake him out?  No.  You will never mistake this for actual beef even if their wizardry makes it look like beef while it's cooking.  But I will tell you this, it actually kept us both full for about an hour and a half after eating it.  I can't even say that after eating actual beef so that was really impressive for us.  After we finished, the Mr said he would definitely get that again and I agree.  They also have slider versions as well as another Beyond Meat burger that is supposed to be in the meat section as well as crumbles, brats (which I'm dying to try!), and chicken strips.

Have you tried Beyond Meat products?

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