Moooove over: How single-celled yeasts are doing the work of 1,500-pound cows

[brooklynite]

Washington Post

BERKELEY, Calif. — The first course was a celery root soup lush with whole milk. The last was a spice cake topped with maple cream cheese frosting, served with a side of ice cream. And then a latte with its fat cap of glossy foam. In all, a delicious lunch. Maybe a little heavy on the dairy.

Only this dairy was different. It was not the product of a cow or soybean or nut. The main ingredient of this milk was made by microbes in a lab, turned into tasty and recognizable food, and then served to a hungry reporter.

Lab-grown meat is coming. But lab-grown dairy has already arrived.

Dozens of companies have sprouted up in recent months to develop milk proteins made by yeasts or fungi, including Perfect Day, the California-based dairy company that laid out this unusual spread. The companies’ products are already on store shelves in the form of yogurt, cheese and ice cream, often labeled “animal-free.” The burgeoning industry, which calls itself “precision fermentation,” has its own trade organization, and big-name food manufacturers such as Nestlé, Starbucks and General Mills have already signed on as customers.

[Demovictory9]

1. Kick

[Sky Jewels]

2. Wonderful!

We need to stop the brutal confinement and torture of dairy cows, which are sweet, social, sentient and smart animals. And of course we also need to stop the brutal treatment and slaughter of meat cows.

And imagine how much more efficient this lab-grown dairy is for corporations.They can out the middleman, err, middle cow, and avoiding a myriad of complications and expenses that come with housing and feeding them and disposing of their waste, etc.

[multigraincracker]

3. For a while hamburger is going to be cheap.

I wonder if it can produce butter fat. If not, cows will be for making pizza cheese only.

[multigraincracker]

4. According to article it does butter fat.

So we won’t need cows except for meat and I try to stay away from beef and pork for health reasons.