Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

David Lee: Impossible Burger uses 95% less land and 74% less water than beef

David Lee · a16z Podcast | Reinventing Food · Jan 2, 2019 · at 7:24

David Lee of Impossible Foods compares the resource consumption and emissions profile of the Impossible Burger against conventional beef burgers.

0:00 / 0:11exact quote · 11.1s

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“Every time a meat eater picks our burger versus a burger from a cow, they save 95% of the land, they save 74% of the water, They produce an eighth of the greenhouse gases for the alternative.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Choosing an Impossible Burger over a beef burger saves 95% of land, 74% of water, and generates 87.5% fewer greenhouse gases.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

The claim accurately reflects the findings of the 2016 Quantis Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), an ISO 14040/14044-compliant study evaluating the original (1.0) Impossible Burger against conventional US ground beef. That study documented reductions of approximately 95% in land use, 74% in freshwater use, and 87% to 87.5% in greenhouse gas emissions (producing an eighth of the emissions). Subsequent 2019 peer-reviewed LCA analyses of the updated recipe showed even higher savings (96% land, 87% water, 89% GHG emissions), confirming the claim's alignment with LCA data.

2016 Quantis LCA on Impossible Burger 1.0 vs. US conventional ground beef found ~95% land savings, ~74% freshwater savings, and ~87.5% greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

Checked against

[1] livekindly.com [2] prnewswire.com [3] sustainablesanmateo.org [4] unfccc.int [5] impossiblefoods.com [6] prnewswire.com [7] ctfassets.net [8] ctfassets.net

"95% less land" "75% less water" "87% fewer" Impossible Burger Life Cycle Assessment 95 percent land 74 percent water 87 5 percent greenhouse gas "David Lee" "Impossible" "74%" OR "75%" "95%" Quantis Impossible Burger Life Cycle Assessment 2016 2019 land water emissions

assessed as of 2026-07-28

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

beef burger Impossible Burger

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