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I have been involved with plant-based cheese making for the last year or so, and here's my opinion: This is interesting research, but lab-made cheese is far aw
by shafyy 5y ago
I have been involved with plant-based cheese making for the last year or so, and here's my opinion:
This is interesting research, but lab-made cheese is far away from being in the shelves. Producing casein with yeast is one thing, but that doesn't mean you can just make cheese out of it. In cow or goat milk (or sheep milk), there are 4 different casein proteins arranged in micelles together with other molecules. That exact set up is important, because when you add rennet (i.e. mostly the enzyme chymosin) to it for coagulation, it cuts the kappa caseins (which are on the outside of the micelles) at a specific position. That's key to the process that is set in motion after that, leading to the texture, taste and function we know from different cheeses.
Other challenges include the mass production of casein in this way. Cheeses contain typcially between 10-15% protein per weight, so you need to produce a lot of it. This is unlike e.g., Impossible Foods, which also produce heme with yeast, but of course they need much less of it per kg of meat.
We're looking at ways of directly make cheese from plant proteins by finding an enzyme that works similarly how chymosin works with casein. It's not clear if this will work - but if does, it will be a cheaper and simpler process than trying to produce milk synthetically.
That doesn't mean that I dismiss the synthetic casein approach - I think it can work, it's just important to understand that it's not as simple it sounds. In the future, we might see cheeses made with both approaches, maybe each with their pros and cons.
- wumpus 5y ago> lab-made cheese is far away from being in the shelves My local grocery store has a ton of them, mostly based on soybeans or nuts like cashews. Presumably you had something different in mind?
- cwp 5y agoSurely he means cheese made from milk produced by fermentation as discussed in the article.
- wumpus 5y agoWhy yes, these cheeses already on the grocery store shelf are usually made from non-dairy milk (example: nut milk) and fermentation. The article talks about an unsatisfactory one at the beginning.
- andor 5y agoThe article and the parent comment are about producing milk that is identical to cow milk in a bioreactor instead of in a cow's udder. It's not about milk alternatives or cheese from plant sources like cashew. Just like there are companies working on lab-grown meat vs. meat-like products (e.g. Impossible, Beyond, Planted).
- junon 5y agoYou're being pedantic at this point. It's clear what the article is conveying.
- suifbwish 5y agoIt seems like you would want to build a high surface area framework/scaffold of the 3-5 dependent layers above the actual production of milk. One semi important question is how do you determine which genome to use. Each cow for instance produces genetically different milk which is based on its genome and epigenome. My guess is we can probably get to a near product pretty quickly with known tech and the next century will be consumed with making adjustments as more is uncovered about the role played by systems not included in the model. Eventually you will likely end up with a basic model of every system in the cow to achieve actual milk. It is curious how so much bio technological/financial effort is spent on something that not only does not contribute to the extension of human life but also serves no other purpose than it’s own end. In general milk is more of a cultural commodity than an anything close to a necessity. Personally I would much rather biotech focused efforts on life saving/extending tech and then we can address other desires later like more perfect hairlines, longer orgasms and memories ect, but such is the conundrum of capitalism trying to determine which humanitarian goal to solve.
- AstralStorm 5y agoWhat do you mean, food not being lifesaving? Unless there's a plan to wean off all industries off cow milk, we'll need it to vastly reduce environmental impact.
- suifbwish 5y agoSeeing as most of the world population lacks the gene needed to process lactose after adolescence, I’m not sure how much of a peak impact this really has on the environment when compared with something like the global greenhouse emissions caused by crypto currency mining.