It’s a truth commonly acknowledged by vegetarians everywhere that every time you buy a mass-produced meatless patty, you risk subjecting your taste buds to something that resembles chick pea infused tree bark. Things get more dire for vegans.
And so a group of engineering students from Lund University in Sweden decided to find the formula for a perfect, additive-free vegan burger that could be both mass produced and distributed in a frozen form. The end goal is to sell it to a distributor, because if you crack the veggie burger code, you’d have to be a monster to keep it a secret.
“The first real problem was actually getting it to hold together,” one of the engineers said in a video explainer. They mastered the sticking formula (it took some potato starch manipulation) and tested various blanching methods to keep the cauliflower appropriately crunchy. This scientific masterly led to the birth of the “yellow beet chili burger,” made of yellow beets, potatoes, carrots, cauliflowers, fresh chili, lemon pepper, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and salt. Sounds almost as good as a real meat burger!
More Must-Reads from TIME
- Introducing the 2024 TIME100 Next
- The Reinvention of J.D. Vance
- How to Survive Election Season Without Losing Your Mind
- Welcome to the Golden Age of Scams
- Did the Pandemic Break Our Brains?
- The Many Lives of Jack Antonoff
- 33 True Crime Documentaries That Shaped the Genre
- Why Gut Health Issues Are More Common in Women
Contact us at letters@time.com