This veggie burger supposedly actually tastes as good as the real thing

'Plant blood' could be the secret to non-awful vegetarian burgers

(Impossible Burger)

Don't want to eat meat but enjoy the taste of seared carcass? The Impossible Cheeseburger might be the cheeseburger for you, using plants to make "the best meats and cheeses you’ll ever eat."

For too long vegetarians have had to force down corn and soy-based patties masquerading as "burgers", but now a Stanford professor turned food entrepreneur claims to have discovered the secret to replicating the taste of meat: "plant blood".

The sanguine liquid has the same consistency and metallic taste of blood and comes from the same molecule found in haemoglobin, which plays a big part in steak's distinctive taste.

The Impossible Burger is said to also have the same consistency as meat.

"The bites still have the consistency of animal tissue," the Wall Street Journal said after a taste test. "It isn't overly spongy like tofu, instead the meat granules cling together, as one would expect in a burger."

If this new recipe of vegetarian burger tastes as good as claimed, it could be an alternative for meat eaters as well as vegetarians.

"Livestock is an antiquated technology," said their inventor Patrick Brown, a biochemistry scientist working in genetic research.

"The system that we use today to produce meat and cheese is completely unsustainable, it has terribly destructive environmental consequences."