A doctor recently broke the truth behind Burger King’s vegan Impossible Burger, finding that when it comes to calorie or protein intake, it may not be a healthier option, and that it has a whopping 18 million times more estrogen than a regular Whopper.
Dr. James Strangle, writing for TSLN.com, describes the chemical process used to make the Impossible Burger of Burger King and points to the possibility that the modified vegan burger may be less nutritious than a traditional Whopper.
Strangle begins by noting that “mostly from the added oils” the Impossible Burger clocks in at 630 calories compared to the original Whopper’s 660. “That’s not a huge improvement, maybe 5 percent fewer calories,” Strangle wrote.
Strangle goes on to explain that the protein of the Impossible Burger is not equal to animal protein, although it tends to be only three grams lower than the normal Whopper:
The impossible whopper has 25 grams of protein. The whopper has 28 grams. Seems pretty equal, only 11% less protein in the impossible whopper. However, not all proteins are created equal. There are 20 amino acids. Nine of which are essential, meaning your body cannot make them so they are required in the diet. Each of those essential amino acids must meet a certain level to make a complete protein profile. If any essential amino acid does not hit the required amount, it is said to be rate limiting. As an analogy, picture nine chains connected in a line. All of the chains need to lift 100 pounds to carry the load. If one chain can only support 50 pounds, it doesn’t matter how much the others can support. The 50 pound chain is the rate limiting chain.
The doctor goes on to explain the process used to make the Impossible Burger have the look of meat, writing that the beef-like appearance of the vegetable-based burger is a product of genetic engineering.
According to Strangle, the red appearance of the vegetable patty comes from genetically splicing a soybean and yeast:
The bacterial enzyme that binds the nitrogen is damaged by the presence of oxygen so the bacterium makes the leghemoglobin to bind oxygen to keep it out of the way. To make enough leghemoglobin to add to the impossible whopper, scientists spliced the gene for leghemoglobin into yeast. They can grow the yeast easily and separate the leghemoglobin and add it to the impossible whopper. So the impossible whopper is technically a genetically modified organism (GMO).
Finally, the doctor explains the radically high amount of estrogen featured in each burger.
“The impossible whopper has 44 mg of estrogen and the whopper has 2.5 ng of estrogen,” wrote Strangle. “That means an impossible whopper has 18 million times as much estrogen as a regular whopper.”
He went on to compare the level of estrogen in the Impossible Burger to soy milk, writing that eating four of the vegetable burgers daily would result in a human male growing breasts:
Just six glasses of soy milk per day has enough estrogen to grow boobs on a male. That’s the equivalent of eating four impossible whoppers per day. You would have to eat 880 pounds of beef from an implanted steer to equal the amount of estrogen in one birth control pill.
In short, the Impossible Burger is a genetically modified organism filled with calorie-dense oils that can make a man grow breasts if eaten in sufficient quantity.
The standard Whopper, of course, is “a ¼ lb* of savory flame-grilled beef topped with juicy tomatoes, fresh lettuce, creamy mayonnaise, ketchup, crunchy pickles, and sliced white onions on a soft sesame seed bun,” according to Burger King.