I realise that this is old news, but I am asked about this one frequently, so I thought it would be helpful to put together a detailed post on the topic that I can direct people to.
Launched in 2016, The Impossible Burger was marketed as “meat made from plants,” using a proprietary plant-based version of the iron-rich molecule heme, which is thought to give the faux meat its taste, texture, and that “bleeding” pink colouring. They are marketed as plant-based rather than vegan, but their CEO and food scientist Patrick O. Brown has been clear that he opposes animal exploitation on a personal level.
However, the controversy comes from the fact that this propriety heme was tested on 188 rats during the R&D stage, which Impossible tells us is the fewest animals they could test on to get reliable results. They also claim to have conducted their tests with the most “humane” research company they could find. This is the same ingredient that they use in their patties, sausages, and ground meat to this day. Impossible Foods justified this by stating:
“We are taking these additional steps because the public wants and deserves full transparency about the foods they eat.”
Where this gets murky is the fact that the FDA does not actually require food ingredients to be animal-tested to meet standards in food safety. The FDA could have stepped in post-market to require testing if safety concerns arose, so instead, Impossible voluntarily tested their products on animals before releasing them to the general public. To be clear, there was no real doubt that their heme would be safe, but concerns could indeed have been raised and used against them by competitors.
In 2017, Impossible published a page on their website called “The Agonizing Dilemma of Animal Testing. In it, their CEO wrote:
“The core of Impossible Foods’ mission is to eliminate exploitation of animals in the food system and to reduce the enormous destructive impact of the animal farming and fishing industries on the environment, including wildlife and the ecosystems they depend on,” said Brown, who has been a vegan for more than 15 years. “It is industry standard to perform rat-feeding studies to demonstrate that a food ingredient is not toxic and is safe.”
“I personally abhor the exploitation of animals not only in the food system but in testing and research. Nobody is more committed or working harder to eliminate the exploitation of animals than Impossible Foods. Avoiding the dilemma was not an option,” Brown continued. “We hope we will never have to face such a choice again but choosing the option that advances the greater good is more important to us than ideological purity.”
The testing stage has long since stopped, but that their heme has been developed through unnecessary animal testing will always be the case. There is an argument to be made about the benefit of testing on less than 200 animals to save so many in the long run, which has been the most common response from vegans when I bring this up.
I find it hard to accept this argument since it is pretty much the standard defense for all animal testing, which as vegans we oppose regardless. Arguments about the “Greater Good” and how we weigh the benefits vs. the harm caused are frequently raised by pro-animal research advocates – I address those arguments in detail here. If we accept this argument from Impossible Foods, how can we reject the same argument from medical researchers? What’s more, can we even object to animal testing for cosmetics? Is that really any more unnecessary than developing a type of non-heme iron to use for an expensive burger?
The argument also doesn’t work on the basis that it wasn’t necessary to test on a few to save many, since it wasn’t necessary to test on animals in the first place. Even if this product did have to be tested, it is an unnecessary product in the first place – nobody needs the Impossible Burger. I balk at the attempt to silence critics by deeming the option to not test on animals “ideological purity,” when in fact what is being described is just… The basic principles of veganism, surely? To not exploit animals for profit?
This would be a much stronger argument if Impossible Foods were offering something unique, that nobody had done before. Their heme is indeed propriety and nobody else uses it, but that is hardly the only way to create a convincing faux meat product. It is not the case that you can’t get a burger that is extremely close to the real thing from anyone else, or that the only option was rice and beans before Impossible Foods rode gallantly to our rescue. When Impossible entered the market, some of the biggest players in the plant-based meat sector were already well-established, offering a wide range of products. So did Impossible really “save animals” by inflicting suffering on 188 rats? Or did they just boost their profit margin?
The notion that Impossible Foods’ main mission is to eliminate the exploitation of animals, while testing on animals themselves, is absurd. Their CEO is a long-time vegan, but the company’s primary mission is the same as that of all large corporations – to make as much profit as they can while maintaining their brand identity. If Impossible Foods were prioritising animal rights or even animal welfare, when they came to realise that it was likely they would “need” to test on animals, they would have taken a step back in their R&D process and redirected their efforts to using existing ingredients that wouldn’t need to be tested on animals.
Patrick O’Brown presents this as “an agonising dilemma,” but it is in fact, a false dilemma. It just is not the case that you either develop the product and test it on animals or don’t develop it at all. You can make realistic alternatives without inflicting suffering through cruel experiments. Beyond Meat did it, and that is their main competitor. Linda McCartney did it 35 years ago, their products are generally far cheaper, and there isn’t a whole lot of difference in the taste or texture.
I don’t want to be unfair to Impossible Foods, or to demonise them. There is nuance to this issue, and I do think it is likely that Patrick O’Brown probably does personally care about animal welfare, at least to an extent. I don’t believe that he is a liar, I think that he earnestly believes that he did the right thing and that this decision was difficult for him.
That does not change the fundamental fact that the decision he made was unethical, and that their product was the result of unnecessary and exploitative animal testing. We are not talking about medicine here, or other products that cannot reasonably be avoided. Impossible Foods are just one company in a pretty over-saturated market, and this product is the result of animal exploitation that it is very practicable to avoid.
By any reasonable definition of the word, this is not a vegan product. Stating this fact is not a matter of “ideological purity”; it is a matter is ethical consistency.
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