For dishes where you're already using lower quality ground meat as 'bulk' I can absolutely see it competing. The main problem is that it still costs a fair bit more than the low end meat it has a reasonable chance of replacing. Once it gets to a price point where McDonalds can sell their Impossible Big Mac for $1 cheaper than their meat Big Mac, then I think things will really start to change.
Ground impossible meat is as good as real ground beef IMO, though it took me a while to realize that you need to salt/spice it just as you would real meat too! ie. if you put straight ground beef on a grill, it'll taste a little bland. Same with the fake meats.
You should absolutely eat it hot though, once it cools down it's a a bit less good.
Overall it's pretty amazing and can work as a substitute for meat.
It doesn't give you the meat heaviness, which some people may consider a downside, but I personally consider it an upside. I can't imagine having a 1/2 lb burger and then doing sports even 2 hours later. I'd just feel gross and heavy.kj With Impossible burger sports would be totally, well, possible.
As for the ground impossible meat, my only negative feedback is that it's a poor candidate for use in boxed dinners (like Hamburger Helper), because the addition of too much liquid ruins the illusion: it starts to dissolve into its constituent vegetable powders.
But heck, I recently found the burgers flagged with a modest discount at Costco that made them cheaper than the beef burgers, per unit!
I do also wonder how the food safety compares. Ground beef has a large risk of e-coli and needs to be thoroughly cooked. Presumably plant-based food doesn’t have the same level of danger. Although I imagine if left unrefrigerated anything with that much nutrition in it would quickly become dangerous to eat.
I'm biased (chicken farmer), but to me it seems quite strange to think that some highly-processed factory-produced meatlike substance could ever come close to matching the nutritive quality of well-raised and processed meat.
Factories are in general not well-known for producing healthful food.
Edit: On the bad side - Canadian A&W featured Beyond Meat chicken nuggets. These tasted nothing like chicken. They weren't inedible, but not a good approximation of even the low quality nugget meat.
I found impossible tastes more like real meat, reminded me of a cheap frozen grocery store patty
To me Beyond tasted less like real meat but had a better flavor/spices