“Impossible Foods” is a vegetarian taste-making wonder laboratory based in Northern California. Through miracles of modern science, they have created the ultimate answer to the argument of diehard carnivores since the invention of the veggie burger: “nothing takes the place of a good old-fashioned hamburger.” I’m sorry to have to tell them, but something actually does.

The Impossible Burger, now available at select restaurants around the country, not only tastes and smells like a real hamburger, but as some folks have already discovered, it bleeds like one. That’s right, they’ve managed to recreate the age-old test of how perfectly prepared a quarter-pound of processed meat is – the juices.

But How?!

For years our society has had flavors added to their daily diets without a second thought to the process of how it was achieved. Tastes like Cool Ranch  and Sour Cream and Onion weren’t created by preparing the raw ingredients in their namesakes; they were made with science. Through developments in molecular technology, Impossible Foods has been able to synthesize the flavor of a burger and add the nuance of grilled meat to a product created entirely of vegan ingredients. The secret is an ionized atom called heme, which occurs naturally in meat as well as many other organic materials. Heme gives the Impossible Burger the attributes that we think of as being unique to a hamburger (but, ahem, they are not).

Why would you give up traditional hamburgers to eat something that ostensibly acts, tastes, smells and eats just like a hamburger? The environmental impact of eating processed meat and farming livestock is so detrimental, that statistically eating just a single Impossible Burger conserves the same amount of water as a ten-minute shower – 75 square-feet of open land for wildlife and significantly reduces the amount of greenhouse gases created by the farming of animals. Every time you eat an Impossible Burger there’s literally sustainability in every bite. They’re making it pretty easy to put your motives where your mouth is.

Find your local Impossible Burger here.