Connecting Plate to Planet with Impossible Foods

Have you ever wondered why plant-based meats like the Impossible burger are having such a moment right now? What's the beef with beef, anyway? How could an innocent hamburger be so bad for the environment? 

To get to the bottom of this, we sat down with some of the Impossible Foods team to talk about the environmental impact of the meat industry and how alternatives like Impossible have truly revolutionary implications for our environment. 

They share why their mission to re-imagine the future of meat started with the hamburger and dish out some sizzling facts about the negative impacts of the beef industry. We explore why Impossible is marketed primarily to omnivores and not vegans or vegetarians. We conclude by exploring the overlaps between the mission of Imperfect and Impossible, and what we hope to see in the future of the American food system. 

This episode is a must-listen for omnivores, carnivores, environmentalists, and curious grill-masters alike! 

Episode Show Notes:

1. For Rebekah, eating more plants is a no-brainer for the environment. She points to the fact that since 1970, over 50% of all animal species have gone extinct due to human activity, much of which was deforestation due to cattle production. 
2. Beef is the least efficient meat to produce from an energy standpoint. 97% of the plant calories needed to grow a cow are lost in production, meaning that a cow yields just 3% of all of the calories that it ate during its lifetime! 
3. Compared to a beef burger, an Impossible burger requires 96% less land, 87% less water, and 89% fewer greenhouse gas emissions. 
4. Learn more about the impact of eating plant-based using Impossible's impact calculator. 
5. You can find delicious recipes featuring Impossible on their recipes page. 
6. Rebekah recommends following the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, particularly their reports on meat consumption. 
7. Daniele loves the kimchi fried rice recipe from the New York Times. 
8. Imperfect has taken a stance on how confusion around "best by" dates causes hundreds of millions of pounds of needless food waste every year. Get the truth and stop dating your food! 
9. Daniele's go-to karaoke song is "Case of the Ex" by Maya 
10. Project drawdown lists reducing food waste and plant-rich diets as two of the best ways to reverse climate change