Veg burger that’s so much like meat it even bleeds

FOR meat-eaters, veggie burgers have rarely seemed like the most appetising option on the menu.

But the latest wave of vegetable-based burgers heading to the UK is said to sizzle, ‘bleed’, and even taste more like beef than the real thing.

Last month a firm called Beyond Meat began selling its burgers at 200 Whole Foods Market stores in the US.

It looks similar to a raw beefburger patty but comes from pea protein and made to ‘bleed’ using beetroot.

Animal welfare and health concerns over meat mean that consumers are looking more towards alternatives.

And it is thought that the quality of vegetable-based burgers available could kill off attempts to grow meat in a lab. One plant-

Tastes more like beef than the real thing

based alternative to meat that has arrived in the UK already is the More Than Meat range, which includes burgers, sausages and casseroles.

Made using wheat protein, beans, nutritional yeast and flours and cooked in small batches, the More Than Burger contains 99 per cent less saturated fat and 38 per cent more protein than a Waitrose beefburger.

And a company called Fry Family Food, which is stocked by Morrisons, Ocado and Whole Foods, offers nuggets, schnitzels and stirfry strips made using a mix of rice protein, quinoa, chia seeds and flaxseed.

The rise of the meat-free burgers has been revealed by The Grocer magazine, which suggested that families would be more likely to buy these than products made from meat grown in the laboratory.

Research by Harris Interactive found only 16 per cent of people said they would be happy to try lab-grown meat.

Head of consumer and retail research at Harris, Lucia Juliano, said: ‘We are quite simply opposed to the idea of cultured meat without knowing much about it.’