Now I have to ‘root’ for this plant creation

Until now, veggie burgers have left me green around the gills.

As a lifelong carnivore, I have yet to eat a faux meat knockoff that lives up to my beefy standards, but the Impossible Burger is the closest to the real thing I’ve tasted so far.

Visually, this plantbased patty looks like nothing new under the bun. It comes off the grill with crispy edges, and is cooked medium to offer a pink interior.

But there’s the wow factor: it bleeds like a juicy beef burger thanks to the addition of “heme,” a red iron molecule found in meat and some plants.

The inventors of this burger infused it with the molecule in a lab with a plant-based version of the protein.

It handles like the real deal, too.

Take a bite, and it feels like a Shake Shack burger in your mouth, and the illusion works: If you didn’t tell me this wasn’t meat, I probably wouldn’t have guessed.

Perhaps the biggest difference from the real thing is the intense, nutty taste which might come from soy protein, a minor but pungent ingredient in the lab-brewed burger.

Even that flavor is mostly masked by all the condiments that Momofuku Nishi chef David Chang dresses the patty with: standard lettuce, tomato and pickles with a flavorful special sauce served on a fluffy potato bun.

Customers can order the burger with or without cheese, but I would strongly advise adding it — the burger seemed bland without it.

While I wouldn’t wait on the inevitable wraparound line for the Impossible Burger when it debuts Wednesday, I certainly wouldn’t deter others from trying it at least once, especially vegetarians or vegans who are looking for a tasty alternative to meat. I won’t stop eating my Shake Shack, but I can say I’m open to turning over a new leaf.