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I need more details than that, but looks very interesting: “HOW SOLEIN IS MADE Solein® is made from natural single-cell organisms, which are grown in a ferment
by tambourine_man 4y ago
I need more details than that, but looks very interesting:
“HOW SOLEIN IS MADE
Solein® is made from natural single-cell organisms, which are grown in a fermentation process. Water is split from the air with renewable electricity into hydrogen and oxygen. The cells are fed CO2 from the air, hydrogen and mineral nutrients.
These microorganisms are then able to make amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids (fats), and vitamins. They do the heavy lifting in this process. We are only letting their microscopic lives fulfil their purpose: procreation and diversification.
When it's time to harvest the Solein, the excess water is removed, and then it is finally dried into a fine protein powder, with no plants or animals harmed in the process.”
PS: fulfill (sic)
PS2: I'm sure the similarity of the name with soylent green is not lost on the marketing team, I'm just surprised they found it beneficial.
- Animats 4y agosimilarity of the name with soylent green Remember Soylent, the company and product? They're still around, selling on Amazon.
- vorpalhex 4y agoOther than some sanitation woes in their factory, they produce a decent product. I use it heavily when traveling since it's easy to get some soylent at my destination. No need to prep food or have a kitchen, reasonably balanced, tasty enough.
- Animats 4y agoOther than some sanitation woes in their factory, they produce a decent product. You had one job...
- dekhn 4y agoit was not terrible, I used some when I reached my top weight and used it to replace physical food. Tastes vaguely of peas.
- gus_massa 4y ago> These microorganisms are then able to make amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids (fats), and vitamins. * Carbohydrates are easy. (It's actually very difficult to "transform" light into sugar, but there are plenty of plants and bacteria that can do that. They are using Hydrogen instead of light, but so let's say it's "easy".) * Lipids are even easier. (I can't remember any technical problem here.) * Amino acids are difficult to create out of thin air. You need energy and also a source of Nitrogen. Transforming the Nitrogen of the atmosphere into amino acids is very difficult and only a few specialized microorganism can do that, so color me skeptical. Another possibility is to give feed them with nitrates, that is a very common and important fertilizer for plants. It's necessary a lot of energy to produce nitrates, so it's not an easy step. Perhaps they can hide the nitrates inside the "mineral nutrients" that is technically true, but it's almost cheating. * Vitamins are probably also difficult. Each vitamin is very different. I doubt they selected one microorganism that can produce all of them, if that really exists. Also you need a lot of some vitamins and very few of other, the amount is also important. So I guess to use this it's necessary to complement it with vitamins from other sources.
- gpcr1949 4y agoThe nitrogen source is effectively in the nutrients (so not air/nitrogen fixation by their organism), and is provided as ammonia, according to this video by Solar Foods[0]. I agree this is cheating considering what is needed to produce ammonia from N2. https://youtu.be/z8zuqR95fqA?t=136 https://youtu.be/z8zuqR95fqA?t=136
- tambourine_man 4y ago> They are using Hydrogen instead of light Yes, why? That’s the first question.
- samatman 4y agoThe only hard part of creating amino acids out of thin air is breaking triple nitrogen bonds down, something we've become quite skilled at via Haber-Bosch.
- efa 4y agoIt's is 2022! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green#Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green#Plot