NYTimes | One
of the chief selling points of the Impossible Burger, a much ballyhooed
plant-based burger patty, is its resemblance to meat, right down to the
taste and beeflike “blood.”
Those qualities, from an ingredient produced by a genetically engineered yeast, have made the burger a darling
among high-end restaurants like Momofuku Nishi in New York and
Jardinière in San Francisco, and have attracted more than $250 million
in investment for the company behind it, Impossible Foods.
Now,
its secret sauce — soy leghemoglobin, a substance found in nature in
the roots of soybean plants that the company makes in its laboratory —
has raised regulatory questions.
Impossible Foods wants the Food and Drug Administration
to confirm that the ingredient is safe to eat. But the agency has
expressed concern that it has never been consumed by humans and may be
an allergen, according to documents obtained under a Freedom of Information request by the ETC Group as well as other environmental and consumer organizations and shared with The New York Times.
“F.D.A.
believes the arguments presented, individually and collectively, do not
establish the safety of soy leghemoglobin for consumption,” agency
officials wrote in a memo they prepared for a phone conversation with
the company on Aug. 3, 2015, “nor do they point to a general recognition
of safety.”
