Updated July, 2020. Meat packing companies are being shut down because randomly tested workers tested “positive” for COVID with no symptoms. They are being sent home for a quarantine…..leaving meat packing companies understaffed and temporarily closed.
Jump in FAKE MEAT producers, largely funded by Bill Gates. Again, a year after they had a meteoric rise and big fall (no consumer interest)….they are being touted as a healthy replacement for meat….maybe, just maybe for the long haul. Diane Kress says….shine a light on the potential poisoning of the USA.
The Impossible Burger: Boon or Risk to Health and Environment?
Claire Robinson and Dr Michael Antoniou take a look at the evidence behind the hype.
Impossible Foods’ meatless burger is marketed as a healthy and environmentally responsible choice.
The key ingredient that gives the Impossible Burger its meaty taste and makes it bleed like meat is a new- fangled ingredient called soy leghemoglobin. Soy leghemoglobin is abbreviated: SLH. SLH is derived from genetically engineered yeast Never heard of it? That’s because it never existed…until now.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refused to sign off on the safety of SLH, which has never before been in the human food supply.
We have NO IDEA how the human body will react to soy leghemoglobin.
The FDA is also concerned that SLH may be an allergen.
In addition to SLH, The Impossible Burger contains a number of other ingredients that are derived from genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Some ingredients in the “Impossible Burger” are highly processed and are produced in industrial vats (“fermentation”).
The GMO yeast must be grown in a nutrient-rich broth made of chemically synthesized ingredients that are themselves industrially manufactured.
Overall, the manufacturing processes for the Impossible Burger are materials and energy hungry. These facts are being ignored in promotional claims about the environmental impact of the Impossible Burger.
The Impossible Burger represents the opposite of what today’s health-aware and environmentally conscious consumers want from their food: pure, natural, non-GMO ingredients that are transparently sourced.
The high-tech food company Impossible Foods is asking health-aware and ecologically conscious consumers to help the environment by eating its plant-based “Impossible Burger”. The burger is available in restaurants across the US.
In addition to the GMO yeast, SLH contains an add-on component known as “heme”.
In its natural form, SLH is found in the root nodules of soybean plants.
Impossible Foods has taken the SLH gene from the soybean and used genetic engineering technology to insert it into a strain of yeast. The resulting genetically modified (GM) yeast is grown at an industrial scale in vats, a process known as fermentation. The SLH is then isolated from the yeast and added to the Impossible Burger.
The heme component of SLH in the Impossible Burger gives it a meat-like taste and makes it “bleed” like rare meat. (This component mimics the effect of heme in natural meat such as beef, where it is principally present as part of two proteins, hemoglobin in red blood cells and myoglobin in the muscle of the meat.)
The Impossible Burger is NOT made from organically sourced or Non-GMO ingredients, so there are other substances present in this product that in all likelihood are also derived from GM organisms (GMOs) – namely soy protein isolate and a number of vitamins – which we shall return to later in this article. So overall, the Impossible Burger is a GMO food.
Is it safe?
The company maintains that the key ingredient of the Impossible Burger that gives it a meaty taste, SLH, is safe to eat.
Impossible Foods wanted the US Food and Drug Administration to confirm safety, providing reassurance for consumers. The FDA refused to do so, as revealed in documents obtained in 2017 under a Freedom of Information request by the ETC Group and other environmental and consumer organizations.
In its communications with Impossible Foods, the FDA expressed concern that SLH has never been consumed by humans and may be an allergen. The agency pointed out that the safety information submitted by Impossible Foods was not specific enough: “Although proteins are a part of the human food supply, not all proteins are safe. Information addressing the safe use of modified soy protein does not adequately address safe use of soybean leghemoglobin protein from the roots of the soybean plant in food.”
The FDA concluded, “FDA believes that the arguments presented, individually and collectively, do not establish the safety of SLH for consumption, nor do they point to a general recognition of safety.”
Slight changes in proteins can have big impacts
Impossible Foods argued that SLH is safe to eat because its modeled 3D structure is similar to that of hemoglobin and myoglobin. Generally, hemoglobin and myoglobin are proteins present respectively in the red blood cells and muscles of animals, some of which form part of the human food supply. (Hemoglobin and myoglobin are also present in humans.) But the FDA replied, “Conformational similarity or functional similarity among proteins is not an indication of the safety of proteins for consumption.”
Dr. Michael Hansen, senior scientist with Consumers Union and member of the GMOScience advisory board, agreed, telling Wired Magazine: “Just because proteins have similar functions or similar three-dimensional structures, doesn’t mean that they’re similar. They can have a very different amino acid sequence, and just slight changes can have impacts.”
Such impacts could include unexpected toxicity or allergenicity.
Additional proteins in Impossible Burger
Another safety issue raised by the FDA is that the SLH product extracted from the GM yeast, by Impossible Foods’ own admission, is only 73% pure. The rest is made up of 46 additional yeast proteins, some of which are unidentified. None have been assessed for safety by the company.
Impossible Foods says, “The non-target proteins which may co-purify are expected to be safe for consumption based on history of safe consumption of the whole yeast in animals.”
Allergenicity
The problem with Impossible Foods’s statement is that animals are poor predictors of human allergenicity. While it’s unlikely that these yeast proteins are overtly toxic, the yeast does not seem to have been part of the human diet, so we don’t know if it could cause immune reactions and allergies.
Impossible Foods argued against allergenicity, partly on the basis that a bioinformatics analysis using the Allergenonline database did not show a greater than 35% similarity to known allergenic proteins.
But the FDA was unconvinced, countering that the approach used in Allergenonline “does not provide evidence of the lack of sensitization/allergenic potential of SLH.” The agency added, “Analyses using other software, such as SVM module-based software, indicate that SLH could be an allergen.”
In spite of all the FDA’s advice, the company decided in any case to sell the Impossible Burger to the public.
Dr. Michelle Perro, pediatrician and executive director of GMOScience, commented, “Food allergies are so commonplace in the American landscape that California schools are now required to have Epipens to treat life-threatening allergic emergencies. The epidemic of food allergies in our population affects approximately 40% of American children – a number that is likely under-reported.
“Dr. Arpad Pusztai, one of the first researchers of GM food safety, raised the issue that newly modified proteins are foreign to our immune systems, which could make them immunogenic and ultimately allergenic. For example, a normally non-allergenic protein in beans (alpha-amylase) was found to cause immunogenic and allergic-type reactions in mice once it had been genetically engineered into peas.1
“Given these facts, to introduce another potential allergen into the food supply before it has been tested appears highly irresponsible.”
ALLERGENONLINE: LINKS TO MONSANTO!
The Allergenonline database cited by Impossible Foods is housed at the University of Nebraska and is described as “a tool for evaluating the safety of proteins” included in foods through processing or genetic modification”. It is funded by biotechnology companies and is managed by the former Monsanto scientist Richard E. Goodman.
Impossible Foods contracted Dr. Goodman to assess the potential allergenicity of SLH as part of its submission to the FDA. According to the submission, “Dr. Goodman’s expert opinion concluded that soybean leghemoglobin is very unlikely to present a risk of dietary allergy to consumers.” Dr. Goodman also published his opinion in a peer-reviewed article co-authored by an Impossible Foods scientist.
It is to the FDA’s credit that it was not swayed by the “expert opinion” of Dr. Goodman and refused to give its safety stamp to the Impossible Burger. Impossible Foods withdrew its request to the FDA for GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status for SLH in November 2015. However, it is a sad indictment of the US’s regulatory system that the company was nevertheless legally able to go ahead and launch the product onto the market in 2016.
Low environmental impact?
A major plank of Impossible Foods’ pitch for its meatless burger is the heavy environmental impact of industrial-scale livestock farming . According to the company’s website, “The way the world produces meat today is taking an enormous toll on our planet. According to livestock researchers, animal agriculture uses 30% of all land, over 25% of all freshwater on Earth, and creates as much greenhouse gas emissions as all of the world’s cars, trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes combined.”
In contrast, Impossible Foods presents its product as low-impact and environmentally friendly : “Because we use 0 % cows, the Impossible Burger uses a fraction of the Earth’s natural resources. Compared to cows, the Impossible Burger uses 95% less land, 74% less water, and creates 87% less greenhouse gas emissions.”
But let’s take a closer look at the burger’s ingredients: “Water, Textured Wheat Protein, Coconut Oil, Potato Protein, Natural Flavors, Leghemoglobin (Soy), Yeast Extract, Salt, Konjac Gum, Xanthan Gum, Soy Protein Isolate, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Thiamin (Vitamin B1), Zinc, Niacin [Vitamin B3], Vitamin B6, Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12.”
Almost all of these ingredients are highly processed. Textured wheat and potato proteins are processed foods that take energy to manufacture. The SLH in the Impossible Burger is extracted from GMO yeast, which is fermented in large vats in an industrial setting. The yeast must be grown in a nutrient-rich broth made of chemically synthesized ingredients that are themselves industrially manufactured.
The vitamins in the burger are another example of highly processed ingredients. The vast majority of vitamins are not natural extracts from foods but are synthetic. They may be produced by chemical synthesis or from biological processes using algae, bacteria, or fungi (including yeasts). The bacteria may be selectively bred or mutated for higher production using mutagenesis agents like chemicals or UV light, or they may be genetically engineered. For example, vitamins B2 and B12 can be produced using genetically engineered bacteria in a fermentation process.3
Energy-hungry, materials-hungry
All these industrial processes are expensive. Crucially, they are also energy-hungry and materials-hungry. And that’s without considering the environmental footprint of the pesticides and fertilizer applied to the non-organic crops that go into making the Impossible Burger.
Taking into consideration the whole complex manufacturing operation, how much greenhouse gas is generated in the synthesis of all those highly processed ingredients? How does the Impossible Burger’s environmental impact compare with grass-fed organic beef production? Or with the production of non-GMO plant-based burgers like Beyond Meat’s, which is marketed based on its non-GMO status?
These are key questions, which Impossible Foods has failed to address. By simplistically confining the notion of environmental impact to the presence or absence of cows in its burger, it completely misses the bigger sustainability picture. And in that bigger picture, a burger consisting of a novel, potentially unsafe protein produced from GM yeast, mixed together with a host of ingredients that are chemically synthesized or brewed up in fermentation vats, does not sit well.
Pesticides
The agrochemicals applied to plants from which ingredients for the Impossible Burger are obtained may in turn bring another layer of health risks. The greatest risks may come from mixtures of chemicals, which have not been tested for their combined and cumulative effects. But a close look at just one chemical, the herbicide glyphosate, is enough to raise concerns.
Non-organic wheat fields are sprayed with herbicides based on glyphosate – named by the World Health Organization’s cancer agency IARC a “probable carcinogen 4″
In some cases, glyphosate is sprayed on the growing crop just before harvest, potentially leading to high levels of residues in the harvested crop. Glyphosate has been found at widely differing levels in processed foods containing wheat – and the more highly processed the product, the higher the levels seem to be.
While the levels ingested from glyphosate-contaminated foods are claimed by the industry and regulators to be safe, there is a growing body of evidence indicating that the so-called “safe” daily intake level for glyphosate set by regulators may in fact be potentially toxic. The Impossible Burger – as well as meat-based burgers – may contain residues of glyphosate that will add to the consumer’s daily intake level.
What the public wants
In conclusion, the claims made for the Impossible Burger’s health and environmental credentials are at best questionable and at worst highly misleading. But the more fundamental point is that this burger, the product of poorly tested novel and synthetic ingredients and GMOs, represents the opposite of what an increasingly food-aware and environmentally conscious public wants: pure, minimally processed natural ingredients, free from GMOs, transparently sourced, and produced with as few chemical and synthetic inputs as possible.
References
1. Prescott VE, Campbell PM, Moore A, et al. Transgenic expression of bean alpha-amylase inhibitor in peas results in altered structure and immunogenicity. J Agric Food Chem. 2005;53:9023–30. doi:10.1021/jf050594v
2. Survase SA, Bajaj IB, Singhal RS. Biotechnological production of vitamins. Food Technol Biotechnol. 2006;44(3):381–396. http://www.ftb.com.hr/archives/76-volume-44-issue-no-3/388-biotechnological-production-of-vitamins. Accessed April 26, 2018.
3. zu Berstenhorst SM, Hohmann H-P, Stahmann K-P. Vitamins and vitamin-like compounds: microbial production. In: Schaechter M, ed. Encyclopedia of Microbiology. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Elsevier Inc.; 2009:549-561.
4. International Agency for Research on Cancer. IARC Monographs Volume 112: Evaluation of Five Organophosphate Insecticides and Herbicides. Lyon, France: World Health Organization; 2015. http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol112/.
5. Food Democracy Now! and The Detox Project. Glyphosate: Unsafe on Any Plate: Food Testing Results and Scientific Reasons for Concern. Clear Lake, IA, USA: Food Democracy Now! and The Detox Project; 2016. bit.ly/glyphosateFood.
6. Mesnage R, Defarge N, Spiroux de Vendômois J, Séralini GE. Potential toxic effects of glyphosate and its commercial formulations below regulatory limits. Food Chem Toxicol. 2015;84:133–153. doi:10.1016/j.fct.2015.08.012
Here’s the full nutritional breakdown of one three-ounce “Impossible Burger” patty:
220 calories (highest in calories)
13 g fat (10 g saturated) (highest in fat and saturated fat)
430 mg sodium (highest in sodium)
20 g protein (less protein than natural ground beef)
5 g carbohydrates (more carbs than natural ground beef)
0 g fiber
Less than 1 g sugar
Here’s how it compares to a three-ounce ground beef patty that’s 93 percent lean:
164 calories
8 g fat (3 g saturated)
56 mg sodium
22 g protein
0 g carbohydrates
0 g fiber
0 g sugar
Here’s the nutritional breakdown for a standard REAL veggie patty
124 calories
4 g fat (1 g saturated)
398 mg sodium
11 g protein
10 g carbohydrates
3 g fiber
Less than 1 g sugar
RELATED STORY
vermont-gmo-foods-cfd.jpg
What Exactly IS Genetically Modified Food?
The company told Bloomberg in a statement at the time that they expect a positive review of their product, and added that the Impossible Burger is “totally safe to eat, and millions of people have enjoyed it.”
“The truth is, it is such a new food, that we just don’t know the long-term effects because there hasn’t been time to study it,” says Yeung. So it’s hard to say right now whether the GMOs used to create the IB’s signature taste will have any impact on your health.
At the end of the day, you should treat it nutritionally like red meat, Yeung says. “I recommend consuming it no more than twice a week,” she says. “From a nutrition perspective, if it comes down to eating a lean beef or turkey burger versus the Impossible Burger, I’d choose the meat burgers, and the ingredients are all natural versus manufactured.”
Related Story
GMO Impossible Burger Tests Positive for Glyphosate
Max Goldberg May 17, 2019
(The Impossible Burger from Impossible Foods)
As Beyond Meat’s very successful IPO is bringing a lot of attention to the alt-protein category, it is important to take a look at what exactly are in these food products.
One popular name in this space is the Impossible Burger, a product we first wrote about in 2017 when Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents uncovered that the FDA disagreed with the company’s safety assessments of the burger’s main ingredient — soy leghemoglobin. However, the company continued selling it to the public anyhow without informing consumers about the FDA’s very serious concerns.
The issue this time around with the Impossible Burger is the amount of glyphosate that it contains.
According to Moms Across America, who had the product tested at Health Research Institute Laboratories, the levels of glyphosate were 11x that of the Beyond Meat burger and the total result (glyphosate and its metabolite AMPA) came in at 11.3 parts per billion.
Why should consumers care about glyphosate?
Because glyphosate is known to the State of California to cause cancer and the World Health Organization says it is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” — which means that it “probably causes cancer to humans.” Glyphosate also happens to be the primary ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, and approximately 250 million pounds of this weed killer are sprayed each year in the U.S.
Recent court cases, including the $2 billion judgment to a couple whose non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was caused by Roundup, have provided more evidence of how harmful this chemical is.
So, the Impossible Burger not only contains a genetically-modified protein that has never been in the human diet , but it has also tested positive for glyphosate.
Additionally, company founder Pat Brown wrote the other day that the Impossible Burger will now be using GMO soy in its burgers. Genetically-modified soy is sprayed with Roundup and is one of Monsanto’s most important products.
“The Impossible Burger is being marketed as a solution for ‘healthy’ eating, when in fact 11 ppb of glyphosate herbicide consumption can be highly dangerous. Only 0.1 ppb of glyphosate has been shown to destroy gut bacteria, which is where the stronghold of the immune system lies. I am gravely concerned that consumers are being misled to believe the Impossible Burger is healthy,” said Zen Honeycutt, Executive Director of Moms Across America.
What should also be noted is that very low levels of glyphosate, 0.1 ppb, have been shown to cause fatty liver disease.
If you’re looking to switch to a vegan diet or consume less meat, there are numerous organic meatless options out there, such as Hilary’s Veggie Burgers or Don Lee Farms, products that are not genetically modified and whose ingredients have not been sprayed with glyphosate.
While the Impossible Burger may be generating a lot of hype and is Instagram-worthy because of how it “bleeds”, it carries elevated levels of glyphosate when compared to its non-organic peers, and its key ingredients are not found in nature but are manufactured in a laboratory.
GMO IMPOSSIBLE BURGER POSITIVE FOR CARCINOGENIC GLYPHOSATE
POSTED BY ZEN HONEYCUTT 2694.40GS ON MAY 16, 2019
GMO IMPOSSIBLE BURGER TESTS 11X HIGHER FOR
GLYPHOSATE WEED KILLER RESIDUE THAN
BEYOND MEAT BURGER
MOMS ACROSS AMERICA
May 16, 2019, Mission Viejo, CA. Two days ago a Monsanto trial jury awarded the plaintiffs over $2 billion dollars, for the connection between the glyphosate-based herbicide, Roundup, and their cancer. Today, Moms Across America announces that the Impossible Burger* tested positive for glyphosate. The levels of glyphosate detected in the Impossible burger by Health Research Institute Laboratories were 11 X higher than the Beyond Meat Burger. The total result (glyphosate and it’s break down AMPA) was 11.3 ppb. Moms Across America also tested the Beyond Meat Burger and the results were 1 ppb.
“We are shocked to find that the Impossible Burger can have up to 11X higher levels of glyphosate residues than the Beyond Meat Burger according to these samples tested.
The Impossible Burger is a new genetically modified (GM) plant-based product that was prominently featured at the Natural Products Expo West. Burger King, White Castle, Hard Rock Cafe, Red Robin, Cheesecake Factory and hundreds of other restaurants now carry the product where it does not have to be labeled or described as GM on the menu. The Impossible Burger is made of GMO soy, which has been shown to cause organ damage in animal studies and has been shown to be significantly different from non GMO soy. The GM ingredients of the Impossible Burger, which includes a genetically modified yeast and GM soy leghemoglobin proteins, 46 of which are undisclosed and untested, are even more concerning to many consumers than the long-term health effects from glyphosate because of the reported immediate allergic reaction potential, which is acknowledged by the manufacturer. The part of the genetically modified soy used in the Impossible Burger has never before been allowed in the human food supply and has not been properly safety tested.
Although the leghemoglobin soy is claimed to be “identical to soy heme which has been consumed for thousands of years”, the following question posed by Consumers Report’s Michael Hansen has never been answered: “How could the heme in the Impossible Burger be ‘identical’ to the heme humans have been consuming for hundreds of thousands of years in meat and other foods if you genetically engineer it?”
The Impossible Burger also contains conventional wheat which, along with soy, is commonly sprayed with glyphosate herbicides as a drying agent before harvesting. The “natural” product also contains potatoes, which may be genetically modified, and could also absorb the chemical through the soil after pre-planting herbicide applications. Glyphosate does not wash, dry, or cook off and was listed on the Prop 65 California EPA list of carcinogens in 2017.
Glyphosate herbicides have not only been proven to be carcinogenic, but they are also neurotoxic, endocrine disrupting, cause DNA damage and liver disease at ultra low levels, lower than what was found in the Impossible Burger.
According to the American Liver Foundation over 100 million people in America, (that’s about 1/3 of Americans) are estimated to have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Glyphosate herbicide is also widely sprayed on animal feed, which harms the health of animals, so supporting the use of this herbicide by consuming the Impossible Burger and other non-organic products is an animal welfare issue as well.
The impact glyphosate and GMO products can no longer be ignored. Honeycutt considers, “If Bayer goes bankrupt due to the outcome of about 14,000 lawsuits filed against them for the carcinogenic effects of glyphosate herbicides, who will become liable for harm to the public? I wonder if it will be retailers and food brands who continue to expose the public to toxic glyphosate herbicides.”
Moms Across America calls upon consumers to ask their restaurant and grocery stores not to sell this product and to sell/buy/eat whole, organic, plant based, real food instead. They also request public comments be made to the EPA to cancel the license for glyphosate. Glyphosate herbicides have been severely restricted or banned in 34 countries.
From Diane Kress:
I’ve posted this article because I am terrified of what is happening to our food supply; behind the scenes and without our knowledge or consent. We are bombarded by articles and news reports on the benefits of a “plant-based diet.” This guise opens the door for dirty money making from the production of lab-created concoctions that have nothing to do with good health.
Imagine: the FDA did not approve this product, but it’s being sold in restaurants with buyers feeling they are doing something good for themselves and the environment. Stay Awake!
Please don’t be fooled.
ABOUT DIANE KRESS:
About her NY Times Bestselling Book: http://www.themetabolismmiracle.com.
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The Metabolism Miracle
The Metabolism Miracle, Revised Edition (silver cover)
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The Metabolism Miracle 