Hello, this is Monica Reinagel, and this is episode number 469 of the Nutrition Diva

Podcast. Thanks for listening today.

Vegetie burgers have been around for decades,

and as the popularity of plant-based and flexitarian diets has grown,

there are more and better options in this category than ever.

You probably wouldn't ever have mistaken one of these for actual beef, but if you're just

looking for something meatless to put on a hamburger bun, well you've always had plenty of choices.

But there's a new meatless burger on the market that claims to look, cook, taste, and chew so much like actual ground beef that you might not be able to tell the difference.

And having sampled it this week, I have to say that this claim is actually not far off the mark.

It's called the Impossible Burger and it's made

from wheat, soy, and potato protein and coconut oil. The makers have done an

admirable job configuring these ingredients into something that looks and acts remarkably like raw ground beef.

You can even choose whether you want to cook it well done or still pink in the center.

But the magic ingredient that is responsible for its

beefy taste and appearance is heme,

an iron containing molecule that's abundant in animal tissue.

While all animal foods contain heme iron,

red meat is much higher in heme iron than chicken or fish

and that's what provides much of the color and flavor

that we associate with red meat. Because it's so well absorbed, heme iron is terrific at treating

and preventing iron deficiency and anemia.

Plants tend to contain the much less absorbable non-heme form of iron, but the clever folks at

...