New companies focused on creating plant-based alternatives to animal-derived meats are on the rise. They aim to re-create the meat-eating experience with veggie burgers that smell, sear, and "bleed" like beef.

Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are two companies that have developed cutting-edge veggie burgers.

On Thursday, Beyond Meat made an explosive debut on the Nasdaq. Shares surged by as much as 163%.

Impossible Foods, on the other hand, recently announced a deal with Burger King to roll out a vegan Impossible Whopper to locations across America.

We tasted burgers from the two companies to see which was better.

Raising meat for human consumption is tough on the environment. More than one-third of all raw materials in the US is used to raise animals for food, according to the animal-rights group PETA. It takes 1,847 gallons of water to produce a single pound of beef.

To combat this, new companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are exploring new ways to create sustainable meat alternatives.

While there have long been plenty of soy-based meat alternatives on the market, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods aim to be different. Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods don't create "lab-grown meat" — a separate innovation that involves growing actual meat in a lab — but their burgers still smell, sear, and "bleed" as beef does, aiming to please meat eaters by re-creating the experience of eating animal-derived meat without the ethical and environmental drawbacks.

Bill Gates and Leonardo DiCaprio are among the investors who have partnered with Beyond Meat to jump-start its success. Since launching the Beyond Burger in 2016, Beyond Meat has sold more than 11 million of the burgers, which can now be found at TGI Fridays and in grocery stores nationwide.

On Thursday, Beyond Meat made an explosive debut on the Nasdaq, with shares surging by as much as 163%.

Impossible Foods, on the other hand, recently announced a deal with Burger King to roll out a vegan Impossible Whopper to locations across America. It is also partnering with Qdoba to roll out plant-based Impossible bowls and tacos to locations across the country, starting in New York.

We set out to taste both vegan burgers at Bareburger and TGI Fridays in New York City, and while both burgers are healthy and sustainable alternatives to meat, we had a clear favorite:

This article was originally written by Jessica Tyler.