Impossible Foods — maker of the veggie "burger that bleeds" — is the latest darling of the food-tech world. Its stardom is driven largely by its claims that the burger is better for the planet than the real thing: But what's actually in its signature patty raises big questions.
Despite these questions, Forbes has given it glowing coverage; The New York Times has served up front-page column inches. Katy Perry, Questlove, and Jay-Z are all investors. And the company is already shorthand for a dot-com wunderkind.
'We are the Impossible Foods of..." This status comes from a PR arsenal, of course, a novel product, yes, but also from the company's explicit courtship of the ethical foodie, tapping a new generation of eaters who want to ensure the food on their plate helps the planet. In its very mission statement, Impossible Foods claims it will "drastically reduce humanity's destructive impact on the global environment" by using plant-based proteins. But just because it's not meat, doesn't mean it's a planetary panacea.
New evidence is revealing we are teetering on the edge of an era of massive extinction, propelled in large part by the very pesticides and practices used with genetically engineered crops like that soy destined for Impossible Burgers.
In a groundbreaking new study, researchers estimate that 40 percent of insect species face extinction — and we could be looking down the barrel of total insect population collapse by century's end, primarily as the result of the agricultural pesticides and mega-monocultures of industrial agriculture.
Designed specifically for intensive chemical use, genetically engineered crops are key drivers of this impact....read more>>>...