DailyDirt: Better Burgers?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Fri, Aug 16th 2013 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Grilling up some hamburgers for the summer is a very common event, but some folks have problems with eating beef (or any meat). And some people are turned off by the possibility of eating horse meat in their burgers (though horse meat is consumed regularly in some places). Here are just a few stories on how we might improve burgers or avoid cows in the process.

Researchers at Kansas State University have created a burger rich with omega-3 fatty acids. According to the scientists, "As a society, Americans' consumption of fish, especially fish that contributes to these omega-3 fats, is quite low compared to other proteins. ... Americans do, however, like hamburgers. So if we can give people a hamburger that is rich in omega-3s, it's an alternative form of a product that they already eat and does not require a lifestyle change, which is difficult to make." [url]
If you're looking for an alternative to a hamburger containing beef, here are 27 alternative recipes. There are turkey burgers, salmon burgers, chicken burgers, pork burgers, black bean burgers, "veggie" burgers, Portobello mushroom burgers... but after you slather them in various condiments, they're arguably just as bad for you as a regular hamburger. [url]
Sergei Brin is the once-anonymous backer behind a fully lab-grown burger that cost about $330,000 to make. The beef cells were grown without killing any animal, and the cooked meat seems to taste like very lean beef (since they didn't grow fat with the cells they used). We're getting a little closer to the cows served at the Restaurant At The End of the Universe... [url]

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Filed Under: beef, burgers, cow, fatty acids, food, hamburger, lean meats, omega-3, protein, sergei brin

9 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2013 @ 5:05pm

The lab-grown burger
Is it vegan if you didn't kill an animal to get the meat? Not that *I* care, but I'd like to see strict vegans eating some lab-grown meat. Vegans, not Vogons... I don't want to hear bad poetry.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2013 @ 5:38pm

I heard the lab grown burger was fluffy like a sponge, and had food coloring added to make it look 'normal'.

What strikes me as ironic, is the makes of the synthetic burger said their doing it to "prevent inhuman animal conditions", yet they need unborn cow fetuses to extract the stem cells from.

Personally, I think it's all about the money, and less to do with feeding starving people or helping animals.
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out_of_the_blue, 16 Aug 2013 @ 6:20pm

Mmm, delish! Drudge has up THIS look at this processed food:
http://www.naturalnews.com/041646_Chicken_McNuggets_forensic_food_analysis_strange_fibers.html

Go tta admit are some strange items in there.

I've not eaten at McDonalds for at least ten years now.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Aug 2013 @ 7:08pm

Quorn
The high-protein/high-fiber fungus food is a long ways ahead in the laboratory "meat" game.

Some friends and I did a beer-fueled side-by-side taste test a few years ago, and a Quorn "Chik'n" nugget was pretty much indistinguishable from the equivalent frozen "Chicken" nugget, and notably better than the most similar soy product.

(And the Quorn "Grounds" are nostalgically similar to the tubs of frozen cooked lean ground beef of my childhood. But I didn't like the frozen meals I tried.)

Does the meat-ness of the lab-grown stuff matter that much to people? Or is grown-in-a-giant-vat all pretty much the same? I bet for some people, "beef" is acceptable, even in a vat, but "mycoprotein" is not.
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Bergman (profile), 17 Aug 2013 @ 12:52am

Generic protein is ok, but I prefer meat
Ground kangaroo makes a particularly tasty burger, and allows for hoppy meal jokes.

IMO, the best meat for hamburgers though, is ground llama. Flavorful like the best sirloin, tender like veal.
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Rekrul, 17 Aug 2013 @ 1:03am

Burger alternatives
My friend eats turkey burgers and claims you can't tell the difference between them and regular hamburgers. He gave me one once without telling me it was a turkey burger. I noticed right away that it didn't taste right (for a hamburger). I'm not opposed to healthier alternatives. I eat turkey bacon, which tastes similar, although not exactly like real bacon, and turkey sausages, which taste quite a bit like pork sausages to me. I'm sure they add artificial flavoring to them to make them taste more like the real thing. However, with the turkey burgers, it's just ground turkey and it tastes nothing like a real burger.
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- stonedome, 17 Aug 2013 @ 8:17am
  
  Re: Burger alternatives
  turkey is a very lean meat...the reason a burger tastes good is because it's juicy and has fat in it! your friend has defected to the other side of the "low fat is good" mantra. skim milk, fake cheese, tofu are in that persons future...sounds delicious?
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- Anonymous Coward, 18 Aug 2013 @ 4:25am
  
  Re: Burger alternatives
  try a turkey burger as a 'turkey burger' and not as a beef replacement burger, you may enjoy to more
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Rekrul, 17 Aug 2013 @ 11:56am

Actually, he doesn't use a lot of milk (he puts it in coffee and occasionally has a bowl of cereal with milk), but he refuses to buy anything other than whole milk.
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