No, the Impossible Burger Will Not Make Men Grow Breasts

If you’re a person on the internet, you may have heard a rumor that the Impossible Burger, one of a few plant-based meat alternatives that have gained massive popularity in recent years, can make men grow breasts.

This is objectively absurd, but because it’s the internet, the rumor has attracted a following, and now health experts have had to “weigh in.” The short answer, unsurprisingly, is no, the Impossible Burger will not make men grow breasts. But since we’re here, let’s unpack this a bit.

According to Insider, the rumor appears to have originated last month in a blog post by James Stangle, a South Dakota-based veterinarian who claimed that eating four Impossible Burgers a day would add enough estrogen to man’s diet to make that man grow breasts. The natural response to such a claim is obviously “Wait, who’s eating four Impossible Burgers a day, and if they are don’t they probably have bigger health concerns to worry about?” But instead, like all inane internet rumors, this one found its way to Twitter, where it was repeated by Shawn Baker, author of The Carnivore Diet and an early advocate of meat-only diets.

It ok if you grow man boobs because you can pretend to be saving select species of cute animals pic.twitter.com/yWSnxOoSll

— Dr Shawn Baker 🥩 (@SBakerMD) December 24, 2019

While this particular rumor linking the Impossible Burger to breast growth in men may be new, it’s really just the most recent manifestation of a long-running myth that soy raises estrogen levels. But as Dr. Caroline Apovian, a professor of medicine in endocrinology, diabetes, nutrition, and weight management at Boston University School of Medicine, told Insider, “There’s no evidence to support this.”

While soy products like the Impossible Burger do contain isoflavones, a type of plant estrogen called phytoestrogen, it is much weaker than human estrogen, and can have either estrogenic or anti-estrogenic effects — neither of which will make a man grow breasts.

“There’s no reason to think that if you’re eating an Impossible Burger, you’re going to get breasts. That’s not true,” said Apovian.

The case here seems pretty cut and dried, but just to recap: 1. Impossible Burgers aren’t your key to growing a great rack overnight, and 2. do not eat four burgers a day, Impossible or otherwise.

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