QUICK BITE: Which Whopper Wins?

Although the Impossible Whopper has been available at Burger King for quite some time, I finally had the chance to try it and compare to the original Whopper.  If you are not familiar, the Impossible Burger is a plant-based protein from the Impossible Company made to taste, and some would say look like meat.  Sounds like a contradiction.  Let's find out.  For my review I got both the Impossible Whopper and the original Whopper. 

What do they look like?  First the packaging.

Beyond the patty, each burger comes with the same ingredients a Whopper has always had.    From Burger King's website:

Our WHOPPER^® Sandwich is a ¼ lb* of savory flame-grilled beef topped with juicy tomatoes, fresh lettuce, creamy mayonnaise, ketchup, crunchy pickles, and sliced white onions on a soft sesame seed bun.

First a look at the Impossible Whopper. 

And what it looks like under the hood.  I was impressed that the tomatoes were good thick slices and there was a good amount of crunchy iceberg lettuce.  The thin sliced onions were also crispy

And now the original Whopper.

Same setup as the Impossible.  The patty is noticeably thinner.

So how did they taste?  The Impossible Whopper had a very meaty flavor and was very moist.  It was complemented well by the crunchy lettuce and thick sliced tomato which gave it from freshness. Perhaps a nod to when the "burger" was a plant.  I could have done without the ketchup on the Impossible Whopper.  It really added nothing to the party.  But the pickles had a good amount of vinegar to balance the savory note from the patty.  Absent was any note of flame-grilled flavor which is one of Burger King's signatures.

While the original Whopper had a subtle, pleasant flame-grilled flavor, it was significantly thinner and much drier than the Impossible burger. and it really needed that ketchup to help.

So which one wins?  For me, it is the Impossible Whopper in a landslide.  It really tasted more like meat to me which is what you look for in a burger.  This is most likely because it was a thicker patty and almost juicy.  If you are looking for a healthier option for a burger, I don't think that Impossible is truly healthier.  Based on their website, the BK Impossible Whopper has 630 calories compared to 660 for the original Whopper.  Both burgers have a lot of fat (Impossible 34g vs 40g for original) although Impossible has zero trans fat.    The Impossible also has 100 more mg of sodium.  And you may have seen the controversy about the Impossible Whopper not being vegan.  To Burger King's defense, they never claimed it was although I can see why some consumers may have assumed it would be.  It is cooked in the same broiler as regular meat patties so will certainly have been in contact with meat even if just from close contact.  I read on BK's website that you can ask that it been cooked separately so that it would be vegan.