A few months ago, I heard about a meatless hamburger that Carl's Jr was marketing, the Beyond Burger. I tried it out. (HERE) . About the same time, I learned that Burger King was pushing a similar meatless burger made entirely of vegetable matter. I meant to try it out, but didn't get around to it. Thinking that, like most promotional items, it had disappeared the month after it was introduced, I forgot about it.
It turns out it hadn't gone away. In fact, Burger King seems to be promoting it more than ever. This required a trip to BK.
I'm not a fan of Burger King. I think the last time I had been there was for another promotional burger of theirs, the Nightmare King, (HERE) almost a year ago. But, sucker for a gimmick that I am... back I went.
There was a large sign in the window advertising the Impossible Whopper, 100% Whopper, 0% Beef. Some may argue that the beef quotient in their regular burgers is about the same or, at least, less than 100%...but that's not what I was there to look into.
Although the restaurant was fairly full, the counter was not that busy. An electric sign next to the menu was flashing all of the virtues of the Impossible Whopper.
The first thing that went through my head was a sort of morbid lurching in my stomach. The green paper wrapping around the burger (which I am sure was designed to make you think of all of the plant matter used to make the burger) only reminded me of the creepy Nightmare King crap with its green bun.
Once unwrapped, there was already a problem. I recently decided to go off carbs and asked if the had a "protein style" or lettuce-wrapped version. The girl at the counter asked her boss, who told her it was called "low-carb style". She was obviously new and had obviously not marked the correct thing on the order because I was staring face-to-sesame seed with a bun. Hmm. That's okay, I thought. I'll take one for the team...er, blog.
The Impossible Whopper certainly looked like a burger...
When I got home, I thought I should look up the nutritional information.
The Impossible Whopper has 630 calories, 34 grams of fat ( 11 grams saturated fats), a cholesteral count of 10 mg, sodium 1080 mgs, carbs 58 g, fiber 4 g, sugar 12 g, and 25 g of protein. I wasn't thrilled with the huge sodium content, but I was shocked at how low the fiber was (only 4 mgs?) for a plant-based burger. Still, there was 25 mgs of protein in there somewhere.
I decided to compare it to a regular Whopper. The original Whopper has 660 calories (just 30 more than the Impossible version), 40 grams of fat (12 grams saturated fat), 1.5 grams of transfat and 90 mgs of cholesteral. So far, the Impossible Burger was looking better than the real thing. The sodium in the classic Whopper was only 90 mgs though. The carbs measured out at 49 grams, fiber 2 g and 11 g sugar. The protein count was 28 grams. With lower counts of sodium and carbs, it was sort of a toss up to me.
Then I looked at the price. $5.99 for an Impossible Whopper by itself. A regular Whopper is $4.99. While I wasn't thrilled with the higher sodium count and higher carbs, an extra $1 wasn't too much to ask to spare the life of a cow. If I had to eat at Burger King again, an Impossible Whopper (low carb style, though) would be totally do-able.
I compared it to the Carl's Jr Beyond Burger. Granted, the burger at Carl's Jr had cheese, but it $8.49. Wow! $2.50 more...for a crappy slice of cheese?
As much as I thought I'd never have a reason to say anything positive about Burger King, I would have to say that between BK's Impossible Whopper and Carl's Jr.'s Beyond Burger, I preferred the Impossible Whopper. Good job, Burger King.
Comments